Watered down? Whisky turns out to be about 60 per cent alcohol. But commercial whisky is closer to 40 per cent, diluted to suit public taste and limit the amount of tax it attracts. It is chill filtered to appeal to the American market, which is apparently turned off by the cloudy look you can get in real whiskies. It's the fats and oils that go cloudy - and to filter it out, the whisky is cooled until the fats solidify then they're removed, resulting in a clean drink but one that has lost flavour and much of what makes it glorious.

Glorious and whisky are two words this writer would never have imagined putting in such close proximity, but when you discover the underworld of whisky drinkers and get to taste what they drink, you start to understand their fixation.

These are single-cask whiskies, which means just one barrel is made. Thanks to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, some makes its way to Australia. You pay anything from about $190 to $500 or so a bottle, although as society cellarmaster Andrew Derbidge points out with the help of a spread sheet - the veracity of his words underscored by the authenticity of his kilt and sporran - by the time you take the difference in alcohol content into account, the prices are pretty much in line with the older more special commercial whiskies.

''Every whisky we have is a rare, precious drop,'' he says. Derbidge, a Sydney structural engineer, is speaking in Canberra at the most recent tasting. He heads the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's Australian tasting panel, which chooses 20 or so whiskies from Scotland each quarter. You can buy them by joining the society - or heading to society tastings, where you can taste what you're buying first. And given the disparity of flavours in these whiskies, that's probably a highly sensible step.

Five whiskies were up for tasting last month at the Canberra event. And we start with a lesson in how to taste. First you smell, with your mouth open to allow more of the vapours in. Here, we do a nose test for reasons that remain unclear, closing one nostril, than the other, establishing which side takes in more aroma - ''oh my God, I'm a leftie'', exclaims Brendan Smyth, deputy leader of the Canberra Liberals, who, yes, is a member of this society. He's kidding; spirits are high, fuelled by the excitement of what's on offer and maybe also the clubbish sense of what we're doing. After smelling, you sip, wash it around your mouth then slowly down the throat.

The first whisky is 63.2 per cent, which makes a couple of drops of water permissible to soften the heat.

''What do you taste?'' Derbidge asks. Soot, liquorice, butterscotch, marzipan, audience members call obligingly, well-schooled in the language of whisky. How old? Young, someone ventures.

Wrong! It's a trick whisky, pale like a young one, without the colour imparted by many years in wood, but made in a cask used several times, which explains the lightness. It is 23 years old, made by Glen Moray, one of only 239 bottles, 18 of which made their way to Australia, and three of which have been poured tonight.

Whisky, it seems, comes out of the distiller clear as water. The colour comes later from the cask, and broadly speaking, the more years in cask, the darker it becomes. But as we saw with our first tonight, that's not always the case. The lesson, Derbidge says, is don't judge a whisky by its colour - a big mistake in this game.

But we've turned our attention to whisky No. 2. Band-Aids, yells someone. Hospital ward, tar, bitumen, offers Smyth. Yes, Derbidge says, and isn't it beautiful? No, I protest quietly. I've only sipped the tiniest amount, but I'm rinsing and spitting furiously behind my hand (spitting is acceptable at a wine tasting, but there's not a spittoon in sight tonight). ''I accept that this might not be everybody's cup of tea,'' Derbidge concedes, acknowledging it the ''more extreme'' end of the spectrum.

This drink is from Glen Scotia in tiny Campbeltown and Derbidge projects a photo of the brutal brown-grey building that houses the distillery - a grungy-looking place known for making whiskies that are ''dirty, industrial and grimy'', like the one we're drinking now. That, in whisky speak is evidently high praise. For me, the building and drink are as filthy as each other, but of course just like coffee or wine, or cigarettes for that matter, you've got to train yourself into the drink.

Brendan Smyth is an old hat at this. Whisky has been his drink of choice since he was a teenager, when a friend whose father was in the know, gave him a crock of Irish Tullamore Dew for his 18th birthday. Thirty-five year later, he still has the ceramic bottle.

''Everybody thinks whisky is just whisky, but it's not true,'' Smyth says. ''There's a more diverse range of tastes than any wine will give you. If somebody says have you got a favourite, I say all of them, sweet whiskies, smooth whiskies, smoky whiskies with the peat in them. You can always pick a whisky for your mood, and you can always pick a whisky to match the food you're eating.''

For Smyth, the enjoyment of this drink is serendipitous, after he discovered he has Celiac disease, which explained his lifelong aversion to beer, and he gets hay fever so reacts to the histamines in red wine. Born to drink whisky, he concludes grandly.

But what of the uppercrust associations? I venture. Isn't it a bit of a cliche for a Tory to drink whisky? Smyth is generous enough to laugh, and points out that in Scotland and Ireland, whisky was often the drink of the poor man. He also has to confront the ''my goodness me, the man's a drunk, he likes hard liquor'' school of thought, but says that attitude evaporates when you learn how to appreciate it properly - when you learn to ''nose it'' as they describe the smelling in whisky circles, wash it around your mouth, and trickle it down your throat.

''I'm not your Scotch and coke man,'' he says. ''I hate putting coke into whisky. Don't do it.'' Nor is Smyth a bourbon man, which he says is filtered through charcoal and has a lingering chemical taste. But he's not averse to a rough whisky. ''It's like a nice rough red at a barbecue - sometimes a cheap whisky is not a bad thing just to remind you how good the good ones are.''

Our second whisky wasn't cheap, at $257 a bottle, but rough might be a fair call. As Derbidge says, it was confronting. Dry, acrid, very smoky. People often dislike the smoky whiskies at first, but over time can come to love them, he says. Derbidge, 39, was introduced to Scotch through his future father-in-law, who brought a smoky Lagavulin back from a visit to Scotland. ''Unlike any flavour I had ever experienced,'' he recalls, and he set out to immerse himself in this new world.

''There is a whisky for every mood and every occasion,'' he says. ''It's a celebratory drink, a pick-me-up, a digestif, an aperitif, something to console you when you're unhappy, something to crack open when it's time to celebrate … Whisky has an enormous kaleidoscope of flavours.''

Indeed, the sheer variation is the overarching message of this event (other than the cache that exclusive events impart to anything in the world of food and wine). You'll notice the parallel with trends in wine, with wine drinkers now focussed on lesser-known varieties and on terroir, the differences imparted by individual sites. In whisky, McKinnie says, the differences come from the wood used in the casks (sherry and bourbon are the vast majority, but the society also has access to rare whiskies from sauternes, muscat, madeira and port casks), the sweetness of the barley, the peat used to smoke it, and even the kind of water added to dilute the alcohol.

A whisky aged in sherry casks will be darker than one aged in bourbon, and so popular is the sherry-imparted look (and flavour) that sherry is made simply to season the cask, then the sherry is dumped and the cask sold to whisky makers. Sherry casks cost about $1000 a pop, apparently, compared with more like $100 for a bourbon cask.

So far, we've had whiskies to banish all thought, one through power; the other through horror. It's time for No. 3.

What do you get? Oloroso sherry. Prunes, dates, figs, spices. panforte, Drew McKinnie, the ACT manager of the society, offers. This is my whisky moment, the first hint this drink that could be fascinating. I'm even considering whacking a bottle on the credit card. At $190, it seems very reasonably priced. But too late. Within a minute or two of the first sniff, hurried silent transactions have taken place at the back of the room, and the eight bottles for sale in Canberra have gone. This whisky is Glenmorangie 10-year-old, cask 125.59. Older is not necessarily better in whisky - this is another fallacy - but even so, 10 is youngish. Whisky hits its straps at 10 to 14 years, Derbidge says, and it's rare to see one that improves after 30. There are 620 bottles of this Glenmorangie worldwide, 48 in Australia, and it's been given the whimsical name Spun Sugar on Polished Wood.

The whiskies that come to Australia via the Scotch Malt Whisky Society go through two blind tastings - a British panel, then the Australian one. Nice job. They taste 30 or 40 whiskies each quarter and choose eight. So it's the cream of the cream. And of these, the Glenmorangie ''absolutely blew us away'', Derbidge says. Luxurious, refined, sophisticated. ''This is one of the best whiskies I've had for a long time.''

For me, it's sweet and citrusy, almost like Grand Marnier (possibly heresy). As a whisky naif, I'm thinking it must be obvious in some way, appealing in a slightly embarrassing way like champagne and sweet wines, for which I also have a liking. But it seems whisky doesn't need to be difficult to be beloved of the guys in the know.

''The thing about hard spirits is that because they're high in alcohol, there is a degree of burn,'' Derbidge says. ''But that particular Glenmorangie was very well behaved, so it's very soft and smooth so straight away there wasn't the aggression on the palate.''

This one has been universally loved at tastings, McKinnie says. The former navy man also happens to be the chief flying instructor of Canberra Gliding Club, and he's just returned from a trip for Cooma for some high-altitude soaring (rough up there, he says of a session last Thursday, ''thumping through the sky all day in a PA25 Pawnee towing gliders''). Intriguing bunch these whisky drinkers.

For McKinnie, the Glenmorangie is ''wedding cake in a glass, a bedroom whisky''. It's that stage of the evening. And whisky No. 4 has the room offering comparisons with gusto. ''Burning clutches and sump oil,'' someone yells. ''Disinfectant,'' says Chris Carpenter, winemaker at Lark Hill. ''Chewy,'' Derbidge says. Winston Churchill deliberating over a cigar, dank, the smoke of braking tyres, an electrical fault, a smoking plug or hot Bakelite, a memory of old railways, says the Brit tasting panel, christening it the Hornby Double 0.

The poetry of the whisky tasters makes you think of the opium trances that inspired the romantic poets. What is it about hard spirits and the imagination running loose? I mean, you can drink major amounts of beer and never get poetic. But mundane commitments mean I am on the way out the door before the fifth whisky. I take a quick sip. What do I get? Stale tennis shoes. Clearly, my feet are back on the ground.

How they're made

Single malt whisky is made using only malted barley (barley that has been soaked until it germinates, and sometimes also peat-smoked), water and yeast - like beer. It comes off the fermenter at 8 per cent alcohol, and is then distilled until it reaches 35 per cent, then distilled to bring it up to 80 per cent. The first whisky to come off the distiller is high in methanol (poisonous), so it's run off until the lighter ethanol starts to come through, usually captured at 65 per cent to 75 per cent, and into a cask for three years minimum, where it takes on the colour. By the time it comes out, evaporation has brought the alcohol content to 50 per cent or 60 per cent. Which makes a cask-strength whisky. Many destined for commercial sale are diluted with water to closer to 40 per cent. They're chill filtered to remove fats and oils. Caramel is added for colour - the devil of an additive in the eyes of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.

The cellarmaster suggests the best to get you started

Andrew Derbidge recommends five Scotch and five Australian whiskies. They cost from $50 to $100 and are widely available in Canberra.

Scotch

1. Glenfiddich 12-year-old - the biggest selling single malt Scotch, it typifies the light, grassy, floral Speyside style. It is subtle, delicate and very approachable. Glenlivet 12-year-old, from the same area, is similar and also has many fans.

2. Glenmorangie Original - from the northern Highlands. An incredibly complex nose and a palate that offers vanilla, citrus, and some spice. A good all-rounder.

3. Glenfarclas 15-year-old - From one of the last independent, family-owned distilleries, it best typifies the sherried style of Scotch - the 15-year-old displays dried fruits, Christmas pudding, sweetness and spice.

4. Talisker 10-year-old - from the Isle of Skye, shows richer, bolder flavours than most Speyside whiskies. Drier in style and shows a touch of smokiness. Highland Park 12-year-old also fits the bill.

5. Lagavulin 16-year-old - from the west coast island of Islay. Heavily peated, making for a smoky, pungent, medicinal dram that also displays maritime characters of brine and seaweed.

Australian

1. Bakery Hill, Victoria - releases three different expressions, using different cask types and peating levels.

2. Lark, Tasmania - founded by Bill Lark, the ''godfather'' of the Australian whisky-making renaissance. Numerous styles and releases.

3. Limeburners, Western Australia - in Albany, Limeburners makes great malt whisky. Has also just made Australia's first bourbon and it's a beauty.

4. Sullivans Cove, Tasmania - often using casks from the wine industry, has received numerous awards in international competitions.

5. Heartwood - set up by Tim Duckett, Heartwood isn't a distillery, but is bottler in Tasmania, buying casks from numerous distilleries, and treating and maturing them in his own fashion, with some stunning results.

Drew McKinnie's top picks

Highland Park: Delightfully sweet sherried malt; 12-year-old, great value, more complex and woody as they age.

Strathisla: My introduction to Scotch whisky, just like nectar, light and bright and flavoursome.

The Macallan: Very sophisticated, well-balanced, long, smooth whisky, my favourite is the 18-year-old.

Glenkinchie: A dessert malt, honied and sweet, a lovely after-dinner drink, good for people who think they don't like whiksy.

Bruichladdich: Innovative distillery that makes dozens of different expressions, the easiest of the Islay whiskies (the more peaty ones) to drink and enjoy.

>> The next Canberra tasting of the Single Malt Whisky Society is on Tuesday, November 20, $90, smws.com.au or 02 9974 3046.