One thing to know : I had always had the idea that Whisky tasted basically of the barrel, with the implication that the stuff put in the barrel doesn't taste of much -- like pure ethanol. This turns out to be not the case. I happened to visit a distillery where they let you drink the liquid straight out the still (that, in turn, because this particular distillery hasn't been in business long enough to have final product ready to sell). I was surprised to find that the distillate liquor tasted very much like Whisky.