neat An adjective used to describe a drink - usually of ⇒spirits - which is consumed undiluted or ⇒straight. The first sense of neat is of clean, free from dirt or impurities, and with the meaning of ⇒liquors pure and undiluted, specifically not mixed with water, the first attestation occurs in 1579, 'The Wine that runneth on the lees, is not therefore to be accompted neate ... '. Neat is adapted from the Anglo-French neit, net, in Latin nitid-um, from nitēre, to shine.
neck, goose/swan In distillation, the goose or swan neck is the portion of the still between the ogee and the head. The expression goose neck is most common in the USA, with swan neck more usually being employed in Scotland. Russell (W:TP&M) notes that, 'The design of the neck can vary from short to long; it can be slightly tapered, straight-sided, or severely swept in to the head. At the base of the neck it can be designed to resemble a lantern glass, assume a ball-shape, or be connected directly to the pot with the still resembling an onion.'
According to the OED, with the mechanical sense of 'A pipe or piece of iron, etc. curved like the neck of a goose', goose neck is first attested by JA Ransome in The Implements of Agriculture in 1843. 'A collar chain ... having what is technically termed a "goose neck" passing through one of its links, which is made circular for its admission'.
Swan-neck is defined as 'The name for various structural parts or contrivances having a curved cylindrical form like a swan's neck'.
'The Head ... that makes the body of the Spurr ... with swan-necks'. (Robert Plot, The Natural History of Staffordshire, 1686)
In the 'Inventory of Plant, 6th December 1976, Ardbeg Distillery,' one item is listed as 'Wash still. Reconditioned by Blairs - 1960, replacing shoulders, head and goose neck bend'.
Slinn writes that 'Observant visitors to distilleries will have noticed that the swan-like neck on the copper stills invariably points downwards'. (WM)
nip A small or single measure, now usually whisky. Begg writes that The word "nip" used alone refers to whisky; if other spirits are required they are named - eg "a nip of rum"'. (BMWoS) In bar terms the nip is usually one-sixth ⇒gill in England, one-fifth in Scotland and one-quarter in Ireland. A nip ⇒glass is the same as a ⇒shot glass, designed to hold a single measure of spirits.
Nip is an abbreviation of nipperkin, now obsolete as a term for a half pint of ale, and by extension for any small quantity of liquor. Nipperkin is of obscure etymology, though the form suggests Dutch or Low German origins. In Middle Dutch, nypelkin occurs as the name of a game. As a quantity of liquor, nipperkin is first attested in 1671, ' 'Tis something cold, Fie go take a Nipperkin of wine', and as a measure or vessel of small capacity, containing half a pint or less the first attestation occurs in 1694, 'Barrels, Nipperkins, pint-pots, quart-pots'. The first reference which - by implication - features whisky occurs in 1792, when Robert Burns writes, 'I have a nipperkin of toddy by me'. The OED notes that in later use nipperkin was chiefly confined to Scotland. The modern abbreviation, nip, is first recorded in 1796, 'Nyp or nip, a half pint, a nip of ale; whence the nipperkin, a small vessel'. References are all to ale until 1869 when the following occurs, 'A so- called nip of brandy will create hilarity, or, at least, alacrity.'
It is interesting to note that nip also has the sense of a small portion, a fragment or a pinch from 1606, 'If thou hast not laboured … looke that thou put not a nip in thy mouth', which raises the possibility of a derivation unrelated to nipperkin.
A peculiarly Scottish use of nip also occurs to signify something pungent or sharp, or of hot or pungent flavour, being first attested in 1825: 'Bread, and especially cheese, is said to have a nip, when it tastes sharp or pungent.' It is possible that this usage derives from a nip of drink, particularly of spirits, which when taken neat is hot, sharp, pungent. In 1894, 'I dinna like whiskey wi' a nip' is recorded.
noggin Now used colloquially and without implication of quantity to indicate any alcoholic drink, though usually beer, a noggin is also described in the DoD as 'A liquid measure equal to a gill'. It was originally a small drinking vessel with a capacity of a ⇒gill, first attested in 1630, 'Of her ale, her custome was to set before me two little noggins full', and with specific reference to whisky in 1859, 'The pewter counters and the brasswork of the beer-engines, the funnels and the whisky noggins'. From being the name of the vessel itself, noggin came to connote the contents of the vessel, a small quantity of liquor, variously specified as being a quarter or a third of a pint. With this sense it is first attested in 1693, 'the Humble servant of ev'ry one that Treats him with a Noggin of cool Nants', and with reference to whisky in 1853, 'While we were joking about his adventure over a quiet little noggin of whisky punch'.
Marshall Robb notes that a serving of spirit was in use in Scotland at the end of the First World War which 'measured one-third of a gill, cost 6d., and was called a "noggin"'. (SW3) The word is of obscure origin, and though noigean occurs in Scots Gaelic and noigin in Irish, it is thought that both forms have their roots in English.
North Country Cooper states that 'In the nineteenth century malt whiskies were somewhat arbitrarily divided into five classes: Islay, Glenlivet, North Country, Campbeltown and Lowland'. (CCtW) The North Country classification embraced all those Highland whiskies not included in the ⇒Glenlivet appellation, and has long since been absorbed into the ⇒Highland category of malts.
The term North Country is first recorded in 1297, 'Hii ... barnde & destrude e nor contreie vaste', and the usual implication is of England north of the river Humber, though a less specific usage to imply the north also occurs.
nose The nose is the aroma or bouquet of a wine or spirit. Along with colour, ⇒body, ⇒finish and ⇒palate, the nose of a whisky is an essential element which is isolated and analysed in order to help distinguish it from other whiskies. It is sometimes thought that the nose of a malt whisky is an accurate reflection of the palate; that, as Jackson puts it 'single malts are unusual in the honesty of their aroma'. (MWC) Jackson, for one, disagrees, writing that 'in my perception, characters in the nose can move into the background of the palate, then re-emerge in the finish'.
With the transitive verb sense - to perceive the smell of something - nose is first attested in 1577/87, 'He neuer ceasseth to range till he haue nosed his footing', and used intransitively - to apply the nose in examining or smelling-in 1783, 'Closely nosing o'er the Picture dwell, As if to try the goodness by the smell'. In 1894 'The room was like a barn after a bad cold harvest, with a musty nose to it' is recorded.
A vocabulary has evolved to describe the nose of a whisky, and, as with wines, the images used for the purposes of evocation range from the eminently sensible and helpful to the wilfully pretentious and almost surreal. Jackson usually operates at the more useful end of the spectrum, with comments such as 'Fresh, dry, with a hint of sea air', for Pulteney, and 'pungent, with smoke, seaweed, brine and sweet maltiness' for Talisker. Oz Clarke, in a Daily Telegraph article (20 January 1992) on malt whiskies, tends to the opposite extreme when he describes a ⇒tasting session with his brother during which the nose of the Lowland St Magdalene was likened to Snowcem paint and half-used drums of Burmah oil, and the ⇒Campbeltown Longrow to Whitstable harbour. Writing of Irish whiskey in his Sporting Life column during the 1990s, Sir Clement Freud makes the observation that it 'eschews social niceties, deflates pretension and unlike learned assessments made in respect of single malts: "This is a complicated, gustatory dialectic in which the antithesis of taste meets the thesis of the nose to provide a synthesis of sensation".' Freud declares of Irish whiskeys that, 'The smell is redolent of shredded tote tickets mouldering in privet'. (28 April 1992) Jackson notes that 'people sometimes talk wistfully about the aroma of saddlery, or new leather, when they seek to define the nose of Irish whiskey'. (WGtW)
Not only is the art of nosing - analysing by sense of smell - of general use when considering the merits of different whiskies but in its most sophisticated form it is a crucial tool of the professional blender. As Lamond remarks, 'The master blender has an "educated" nose and can detect more than 150 separate flavours or effects in a product such as whisky'. (MF) According to Lamond, nosing rather than tasting is preferred partly because the tasting mechanisms are adversely affected by the first sample of any distilled spirit and also because nosing is more direct. 'Our sense of aromatics (or "volatiles" as they are sometimes called), is derived from an area known as the olefactory epithelium, which has a direct link to the brain. It is located at the back of the nasal passage ... Using the nose to detect the aromatic ingredients provides a more immediate route to this area than through the back of the throat.'
The whisky blender is not unique in his role, as Hugh Williams, a gin distillery manager for Gordon's in Essex makes clear in an advertising feature. 'There are people working on scientific alternatives', he is quoted as saying, 'but they are light years away from producing anything as good as the human nose'. According to Williams, the master distiller or noser as he is usually known will develop his own shorthand which he uses to describe odours. 'We had a man who compared smells to Kentish cobnuts, another who would say an odour had a green spike through it!' (Scotland on Sunday, 16 August 1992).
Describing the work of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting committee - on which places are understandably at something of a premium - Hills suggests the following nosing procedure: 'Put a little of the stuff in the glass, swirl it around, stick your snout in the hole and sniff. Do that a few times and then put water to it. Usually about as much water as whisky. Snout and sniff again. It is astonishing how the nose changes with the water, and often how it alters over time'. (SoS)