Spirits Beacon Releases Tasting Wheels Designed to ‘Help You Articulate the Flavours in Your Glass’

A new spirit innovation has been released by Spirits Beacon and it’s designed to help you better understand your favorite liquor. (Photo: Spirits Beacon)

Spirits Beacon has released four interactive spirit tasting wheels designed to help strengthen your understanding of the scents and flavors in gin, rum, tequila and whiskey.

Each wheel is made up of three colorful spinning layers filled with descriptors and adjectives that detail spirit-specific flavors. For gin, this means focusing on the many botanical groups used in production.

The gin wheel’s first layer starts with broad descriptors such as fruity, “rooty,” herbal, spiced and floral. The second layer is loaded with 48 adjectives from juicy and leafy to piquant and pungent. The third layer is botanical-specific, featuring a multitude of berries, spices, herbs, flowers and roots commonly found in your favorite gins.

The rum, tequila and whiskey wheels include ingredients that are reminiscent of the flavors found in each spirit such as marzipan, mushroom and dulce de leche.

“The aim of the three part tasting note is to provide some structure for how you can build a tasting note, and help prompt you with some vocab to articulate the smells and flavours captured in a glass,” noted Olivier Ward, Spirits Beacon editor and the mind behind the tasting wheels.

Ward designed these wheels to spark joy in spirits tastings — something that can sometimes feel daunting or rigid when you don’t know where to start. While acknowledging that time and effort are part of the learning process, Ward hopes that the wheels will provide assistance for anyone who seeks support in interpreting and expressing distinct spirit flavors.

Priced at £3.00 ($3.50) each, a spirit tasting wheel for gin, rum, tequila and whiskey can be found here.

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