As I was unpacking my suitcase this morning, setting aside the many bottles I picked up during the trip, I began working through the dialogue of a future conversation I’ll likely have later in the day. What were the best whiskies of the trip? What bottles were the most exciting? What did I use my limited luggage space for and why? What do I recommend looking for at duty free?

Here’s the thing about working in the booze industry: while we’re all generally passionate about alcohol, we invariably end up drinking the products from the people we like doing business with. As a result, pure qualitative analysis is almost never a determining factor in what I buy for my personal consumption. That’s not to say I don’t drink really good shit, but rather there’s a lot of really good shit I don’t drink. More importantly, that I won’t drink.

That’s why you have to be careful asking a booze professional about their personal preferences. It’s a loaded question because of all the emotional factors tied to business that weigh in on our decision making. The pleasure I get from drinking a certain wine or whiskey won’t resonate the same way with a general consumer. That’s why I have to be careful not to let my personal biases get in the way of my professional advice; not because I don’t want to push them in a certain direction, but rather because I don’t want to disappoint them!

When I drink a $200 bottle of Lynch-Bages, it brings me back to the château and the meal I had for dinner when I was last there. When I sip on a glass of Bowmore 15, I remember shoveling barley at 2 AM in the malting room of the distillery. My personal preferences for alcohol are often skewed towards my happiest memories and the nostalgia these beverages can offer me. When someone asks me what I like to drink, words alone cannot suffice. The emotional tie that I have with a person, place, or company often transcends the pure liquid itself.

But to simplify all this, imagine the following scenario. I’m sitting in a bar and someone tells the bartender: “I’ll have what he’s having.” That person is making the assumption that, as a booze professional, I probably looked at the list and made a strong qualitative decision based on the available options. However, that’s almost never the case. If I’m sitting in a bar with a glass of whisky, it’s likely something I’ve never tried before, or it’s the product of someone I know and respect. Quality-to-dollar is the furthest thing from my mind when I’m not at work.

I can think of countless occasions when I opened a bottle of wine for my wife, or poured a glass of whiskey for a friend, 100% ready for that person to be just as excited as I was. You learn over time, however, that it’s impossible to fully translate all of the biases that go into why you drink what you drink. I have nothing but respect for people who let the liquid speak for itself, untainted by the prejudices of the outside world.

That being said, I don’t live in that bubble.

-David Driscoll