This is my whisky laboratory. I have been trying to make whisky starting from PGA (pure grain alcohol) and oak chips. I have made a lot of these whisky recipes. I decided that I need to improve my tasting capabilities in order to figure out whether what I made is good enough to drink or it is swill. So I have embarked on a training program to get my tasting capabilities up to snuff. I read a lot on the internet and have found that several web sites are out there that publish their tasting results. The cool thing is that for any given whisky, all the guys have totally different evaluations of what the nose, palate and finish happens to be. So those guys are no guide. Besides, what they rate as their top picks are way out of my price range. So I have set out to work on my own evaluations. I like single malt scotch. I also like American bourbon whisky. So now I go through a procedure to smell, taste and do whatever to get my tasting abilities tuned up. If I am doing single malts, I use Old Pulteney 12 year as a reference. If I am doing bourbon, I use Makers Mark as a reference. In today's photo, the bottles with blue caps on the left are batches that I have made. I have lined up all the commercial products on the shelf. I have decided that this is a lot of fun. I have to constrain myself, however, because the temptation to go to the store and get another variety is pretty hard to fend off. Just today I decided that I needed Laphroaig in my collection. Don't forget that all this is in the name of scientific investigation.