The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-It-All: Know Your Booze Before You Choose

Whiskey fever is sweeping the nation. Every day, craft distilleries are popping up in remote counties and urban centers, offering a wealth of great choices to consumers - and just as many puzzlements. Does the introduction of a simple "e" to go from whisky to whiskey mean anything? What`s the difference between Scotch and Rye? What`s Canadian whisky anyway? And what about the whiskeys of Scotland, Japan, and Ireland? Where"s a humble Joe to start? In this witty kid-style book on an adult topic, Richard Betts boils down his know-how into twenty pages, cooling our "brown-sweat" anxieties and dividing whiskey into three simple categories: Grain, Wood, and Place. While most whiskey tomes are about as fun as a chemistry lesson, Betts makes the learning slide down easy, reassuring us that this exalted spirit is just distilled beer and, through a nasal romp, helping us figure out which kinds we love best. Humorous illustrations and scratch-and-sniff scents (vanilla, sandalwood, grass,...