mogeexxone replied: "I don't think you necessarily need to read a book. Many websites these days are very informative. One of the things my friends and I have done with different liquors, is that we will hold tasting parties. Usually for birthdays or other special events. You have to have some good friends to do this. We ask that everyone bring a bottle of something top shelf or better, and no one is allowed to bring the same exact bottle as someone else. We've done this with tequila, vodka, and bourbon. We try to avoid stuff we've already tried. Usually, we get around a dozen different bottles which is plenty to get a feel for what's out there. With the tequilas and vodkas, we just did a combination of sipping and then shooting to finish up, but the bourbons were tasted slightly differently. With the bourbon, and I believe the scotches should probably be tasted similarly, we used whiskey snifters. We poured just a little bit for everyone to get a taste. The tasting was usually like tasting a wine. Smelling it. Sipping. Conditioning the taste buds. The only difference is pouring in a touch of mineral water at the end to open up the whiskey a little bit before doing another round of sipping, and then finishing it off. One way I've heard of is to splash a little on the hands, and then rub the hands together until the alcohol burns off. This allows you to smell your hands to get the nose of the scotch. Never tried it myself, but I heard it from a friend once. Collecting bottles is okay, but hard to differentiate from one product to the next unless you've got some a pretty good sense of taste, and even harder when two products are somewhat close in quality. I like being able to try things side by side."