Why NEAT is the Official Spirits Judging Glass

For decades spirits drinkers all over the world have been drinking, tasting, evaluating, and judging spirits from tiny-rimmed tulip-shaped glasses.  The common tulip glass shape has been around for nearly two centuries, beginning in the late 1700s as the “dock” verification glass for sherries and ports imported to Great Britain and redistributed worldwide.  Tulips are characterized by a rim diameter smaller than the maximum bowl diameter.  The convenience of the tiny, single-serving sherry/wine tulip glass, readily available in every drinking household, inspired its adoption of whisky, then most spirits.  Today tulips are preferred by the majority of spirits drinkers.

In 2012, Arsilica, Inc. a beverage sensory research company in Nevada, introduced the NEAT glass for evaluating and judging all spirits of 40% ABV (alcohol by volume) or higher.  For functional diagnostics, the tulip glass is a failure due to a real but popularly disregarded liability, the pungent, nose-numbing properties of anesthetic, euphoric ethanol.

The Problem:  Who truly appreciates sharp, pungent, distracting, nose-numbing ethanol?  Decades of whiskey drinkers have been conditioned by tulips designed for 22% ABV (alcohol by volume) fortified wines, 40%+ ABV spirits in a 22% glass create a nose bomb.  Most drinkers believe ethanol is inseparable and drink for the ethanol, not the spirit.  Drinkers depend on critics, authors, and whiskey gurus who prefer traditional tulips with little knowledge of sensory science to tell them what flavors they may enjoy.  Purchasing decisions are influenced by marketing suggestions and ads, not personal preference.  Most become label buyers, equating price, high ABV, and scarcity with quality.  They believe tiny rim tulips collect all aromas when they actually collect massive amounts of pungent, anesthetic ethanol which masks aromas and flavors.  Numbed, drinkers easily adopt marketing suggestions to define what they cannot smell.

The Solution:  Flavor = 90% aroma + 5% taste + 5% mouthfeel.  Adding a “neck” to the glass forces molecules closer together and imparts higher expansion velocities to lighter aromas.  Ethanol moves quickly to the rim edge, leaving behind high-mass, complex character aromas for easy detection, while the flared rim controls aroma expansion, completely unmasking, retaining, and displaying all aromas for accurate olfactory detection, identification, and quality assessment.

NEAT for Competitions:  Olfactory fatigue is the biggest problem with competitions that judge multi-sample flights.  Unfortunately, tulips destroy ratings for entrants evaluated late in flights of 4 or more samples.  Ethanol increasingly and unknowingly numbs judges’ noses (nose-blindness), deteriorating their ability to detect, identify, and discriminate aromas, the 90% contribution to flavor.  NEAT eliminates nose-blindness and levels the playing field, giving all entrants a fair chance at attaining ratings commensurate with quality.  NEAT is the official spirits competition judging glass for 40+ events annually, with those events placing evaluation accuracy as the highest priority.

NEAT for Serious Spirits Lovers:  Purchasing decisions are placed back in the hands of drinkers, away from marketers’ suggestions.  Self-discovery, personal choice, and gender equity for more sensitive female noses are finally addressed.    NEAT’s future as a “go-to” glass depends on drinkers’ desire to seek spirits’ subtle nuances and flavors over the instant gratification provided by strong ethanol.

Cask Strength Spirits:  Cask strengths contain less water (hydrogen bonding) and, therefore more intense flavor profiles. However, since high ethanol works against olfactory, cask strengths in tulips quickly numb the nose while subtler flavors and aromas go undetected and unappreciated.  Most cask-strength drinkers are infatuated with higher ethanol and do not care about aromas and flavor.

Summary:  For most drinkers the decision to remain in the tulip glass camp is simple.  Tulips are the iconic symbol and identity badge of fraternal recognition and bonding for all spirits drinkers.  To simpler minds, if moving ethanol away from the nose wasn’t discovered and implemented a long time ago, it’s probably fake news; the world stops for them at the tulip.  The problem is more complex, as no one can pinpoint the exact moment at which their olfactory begins to deteriorate, and very few are even aware of its occurrence. Silent and stealthy, powerful ethanol rules olfactory.  Everyone benefits as NEAT (1) opens new avenues for the spirits industry to meet consumer needs with sensory expressions, (2) improves consumers’ perception and meaningful purchasing decisions, and (3) provides competitions with an accurate diagnostic tool to enhance a primary objective — providing honest assessments and ratings.

Using NEAT glass requires familiarity, as the wide lip can spill when “throwing back” the contents, as is common with tulips.  Slowly sipping NEAT is all about appreciating, enjoying, and accurately evaluating spirits to determine character and quality rather than forcing copious amounts of ethanol into the nasal passages to achieve a quick contact high in the name of tradition.