What does the finish mean when tasting whisky?

The finish is the phase after swallowing, in which you notice which flavours remain and how long they last.

In Dutch tasting notes that is called the afdronk. You judge three things by it: the length, the notes that linger, and the mouthfeel that remains, for example dry or full.

The finish is separate from the nose and from the taste in the mouth. A whisky can come in full and end short, or the other way round. In the Scotch Whisky Association's tasting method it comes up in the last step, with the question of whether the flavour lingers or fades quickly.

A finish is not put on the bottle in seconds but on a scale: short, medium or long, measured by how long you can follow the flavour after swallowing.

Anyone who wants to record this for themselves keeps counting calmly after swallowing and notes at which count the flavor fades. The absolute time says little, the comparison between two bottles says a lot, as long as you stick to the same method.

The Scotch Whisky Association puts the question simply in its tasting method: does the flavour linger, or does it disappear quickly. No more precision is needed for a tasting at home.

Two different things carry the word finish: the aftertaste is what you perceive in the mouth, a cask finish is an extra maturation period in a second cask.

The Scotch Whisky Association describes finishing as an extension of the maturation process. The cask in which it takes place must first have been emptied, so that the change comes from the wood and not from a liquid left behind.

On the label, finish therefore usually refers to the cask, for example a period in a sherry cask. In a tasting note, finish refers to the aftertaste. There is a separate page about the cask: what does cask finish mean.

Everything that lingers in the finish comes from the distillate and the cask, because nothing may be added to Scotch except water and plain caramel colouring.

The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 lay this down: maturation exclusively in oak casks of no more than 700 litres, for at least three years, in Scotland, and the addition of nothing other than water and plain caramel colouring. A flavouring that lengthens the finish is therefore ruled out.

Differences therefore come from the production itself: the distillate, the length of maturation, the cask used and the alcohol content at which it was bottled. The legal minimum for Scotch is 40 percent. On the shelf at Brink 2 in Bathmen, 1,884 of the 3,908 whiskies are between 40 and 46 percent.

Adding water changes the ratio between the volatile substances released from the glass, and with it also what you still perceive after swallowing.

In a 2023 study in the trade journal Foods, whiskies were diluted step by step, from undiluted to forty percent whisky in water. The researchers saw that aroma compounds that dissolve well in water ended up less in the headspace above the liquid, and poorly soluble compounds ended up more.

In the sensory part of that study, undiluted whisky was more strongly associated with notes such as solvent, vanilla and oak, and more strongly diluted whisky with notes such as apple, pear and cedar. The authors point out that ethanol at a high level can mask other aromas. The tasting method of the Scotch Whisky Association advises a little flat, unchilled water and then tasting again.

First note the length, then the tones that linger, and then the mouthfeel. With a fixed order, your notes can be compared with each other later.

Work with one glass per bottle, swallow, and wait to write anything down until the taste truly fades. Drink water between two whiskies and keep the number per session limited, otherwise the finishes slide over one another.

Stick to what you observe yourself and do not copy notes from others. A series of your own notes in the same form becomes useful after a few months, whereas loose descriptions from different sources make nothing comparable.