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Delton MendenhallPlain whisky books

For drinkers who are tired of paying for the name

Stop paying the label tax on every bottle you buy

Three plain books from Delton Mendenhall. Read any label in five lines. Build a shelf of six bottles you actually drink. Pour it your way. $27 for all three, with 30 days to change your mind.

Three minutes, sound on. What the books do and who they are for.

Press play. Then read what the three books do, below.

Get all three books $27Read a sample page ↓

Instant PDF download. 30-day money-back guarantee. You keep the books either way.

3PDF ebooks
326pages
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30 daysmoney back, keep the files

The label tax

The famous bottle costs more because you know its name

You know the name because the brand spent your money on advertising. What is in the glass is a separate question. Here is where the money goes.

  • One bottle is 40% in a heavy box at $90. The one beside it is 46% in a plain tube at $50. The shelf never tells you which is the better whisky.
  • The same bottle is a fair buy in one town and marked up hard in the next. Nobody on the shop floor explains why.
  • You own three respectable bottles. All three taste of the same vanilla and oak. One of them has been nearly full for a year.
  • You asked for something smooth and got something thin. Smooth can mean five different things, and the wrong one costs you a bottle.
  • Somebody once told you ice was wrong. You have poured it with a bad conscience ever since.

The label tax, in numbers

You have already paid for these books. You paid it to a box.

Two bottles on the same shelf. The numbers below are the ones printed on them, and they are the whole argument for the first book.

  • One bottle: 40% strength, in a heavy presentation box$90
  • The one beside it: 46% strength, in a plain tube$50
  • The difference, for less whisky in the glass$40
  • All three books, read on your phone tonight$27

That gap is one bottle. Most of us have bought several. The Five-Line Audit in the first book is how you stop paying it.

The five-line audit. Strength, filtration, colour, age, maker. Five lines on the back of any bottle, then the price tag. You know inside a minute whether you are paying for whisky or for the box.

The books

What you will be able to do

Judge any bottle from its own label. Pick your next bottle by flavour, not by fame. Serve it however you enjoy it. One book for each job.

Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually Like

The books / 01

Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually Like

Find what you actually like, in six bottles instead of sixteen.

Name the flavour before you name the bottle. Six bottles that each do a different job beat twenty that all do the same one.

You score yourself on four dials: Sweet, Fruit, Smoke and Spice, plus a Strength Slider. Then you buy to the score. The book sorts out what you mean by smooth, which costs people more wrong bottles than anything else. It gives you a first ladder through Scotch and a three-bottle bourbon trial: Evan Williams Bottled in Bond, Wild Turkey 101 and Four Roses Small Batch. It ends with six shelf roles, so every bottle you own has a reason to be there.

Selected chapters

  1. Stop Buying Labels and Start Buying Flavour
  2. What You Mean When You Say Smooth
  3. Set Your Four Dials
  4. Scotch Regions: Useful Hints and Honest Exceptions
  5. Blends, Malts and the Johnnie Walker Lesson
  6. Your First Scotch Rungs
  7. Crossing Between Scotch, Bourbon and Rye
  8. Four Whisky Countries Without Four New Rulebooks

121 pages · PDF

All three for $27 →
The Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the Snobbery

The books / 02

The Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the Snobbery

Pour it, keep it and share it your way.

Water, ice and the glass are tools, not tests. The right serve is the one that makes you want a second small sip.

Nobody is watching. The book separates what truly changes the drink (glass shape, temperature, water, pour size) from ceremony. You get the three-drop water method for strong pours, an honest ice comparison, and a way to nose a glass without the burn. It covers how to keep an open bottle alive (light, heat, closures, headspace), and what to do with the bottle you have been saving or the one you inherited. It closes with a four-pour blind tasting you can run at the kitchen table.

Selected chapters

  1. Nobody’s Watching
  2. What the Glass Actually Does
  3. Bring the Glass to Your Nose
  4. Water, Three Drops at a Time
  5. Ice, Temperature and the Warm Hand
  6. Why the Second Pour Tastes Different
  7. Keep the Bottle Alive
  8. Open the One You’ve Been Saving

111 pages · PDF

All three for $27 →
The Brand Tax — How to Tell a Good Bottle From a Good Story

The books / 03

The Brand Tax — How to Tell a Good Bottle From a Good Story

Tell a good bottle from a good story, in the shop, in one minute.

Turn the bottle around. Strength, filtration, colour, age, maker. Then the price tag. Scarcity is not a flavour.

This is the Five-Line Audit. Five things printed on the bottle, plus the one nobody prints: the price. You learn what 40%, 43%, 46% and 50% each tell you, when an age statement means something and when it is an empty number, and who really made the whisky. The same-house rule settles Johnnie Walker Green against Blue. Then the book names fair bottles: Arran 10, Kilkerran 12, Craigellachie 13, Benromach 10, Bunnahabhain 12, Powers Gold Label. It works on bourbon and cognac labels too.

Selected chapters

  1. The Stag on the Bottle and the Hole in the Wallet
  2. The Five-Line Audit
  3. The Forty Percent Floor
  4. The Filter and the Dye
  5. Age, Angels and Empty Numbers
  6. Who Actually Made This?
  7. The Same-House Rule
  8. Bourbon's Own Ledger

94 pages · PDF

All three for $27 →
Get all three books $27

Your next shop visit

Three things you will do differently

None of this needs a trained palate. It needs one minute and the back of the bottle.

  1. You turn the bottle around

    Strength, filtration, colour, age, maker. Five lines, then the price tag. You know in a minute if you are paying for whisky or for the box. That is the Five-Line Audit from The Brand Tax.

  2. You buy a flavour, not a name

    You walk in knowing you want more fruit and less smoke, at a strength you enjoy. You leave with one bottle that fills a gap, not a fourth copy of what you already own. That is the four dials from Your First Six Bottles.

  3. You pour it your way and stop apologising

    Three drops of water, a cube of ice, a kitchen tumbler. You know what each one does to the drink, so you choose on purpose. That is The Home Bar.

From the channel comments

What viewers say

These are public comments left under the videos, quoted as they were written. They are about the videos, not the books — nobody quoted here has read them. Buyer reviews will go here as they come in.

  • “Delton, keep up these videos, they are very informative. There were some doubts I had in my whisky world. Two videos and you've cleared them up. This is education, not just tastings.”
    Comment under “Never Buy Costco Whiskey Blind”
  • “Buffalo Trace at the price point is arguably the best intro bourbon on the planet — punching way above its price point.”
    Comment under “The BEST Bourbons For Beginners”

Look inside

Read a page before you buy

Four real pages from the books. Plain words, short chapters, real bottle names. Tap a page to open it.

Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually Like
Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually Like ↗
Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually Like
Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually Like ↗
The Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the Snobbery
The Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the Snobbery ↗
The Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the Snobbery
The Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the Snobbery ↗

What you get

Buy one book. Get the other two free.

The Brand Tax is $27. Your First Six Bottles and The Home Bar come with it at no extra cost. That is 326 pages in three PDFs, on your phone a minute after you pay. One bottle bought for its label costs more than that. Most of us have bought several.

Your First Six Bottles: A Plain Guide to Finding What You Actually LikeThe Home Bar — Pour It, Keep It, Share It — Without the SnobberyThe Brand Tax — How to Tell a Good Bottle From a Good Story

Your order

All three books

$27

One payment. No subscription. Instant download.

  • The Brand Tax · 94 pages · PDF
  • Your First Six Bottles · 121 pages · PDF · free with your order
  • The Home Bar · 111 pages · PDF · free with your order
  • 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee. You keep the PDFs.
Get all three books $27

Instant PDF download. 30-day money-back guarantee. You keep the books either way.

Delton Mendenhall

My guarantee

Read them. If they are not for you, I refund every penny.

You have 30 days. Use the support form, say you want your money back, and you get the full $27. No reasons needed. You keep the PDFs. I would rather lose a sale than have you feel you paid a label tax on my books.

I am Delton Mendenhall. I spent years around pubs, bottle shops and small distributors, learning what whisky costs before the marketing is added. I keep Buffalo Trace at home at all times. I give Johnnie Walker Green Label to people who think they dislike Scotch. Over-oaked casks cured me of thinking older means better.

— Delton Mendenhall

Who this is for

Two kinds of drinker get the most from these

You are starting a shelf

  • You own one to three bottles and do not know what to buy next.
  • You want a way in that does not start with regions, medals or a $100 bottle.
  • You like it with ice or a mixer and you are tired of being corrected.

You already have a shelf

  • You have watched your usual bottle climb in price while the whisky stayed the same, or got worse.
  • You know what ABV means and want the rest of the label to make sense too.
  • You have a bottle you are saving and a few you never finish.

Questions

Before you buy

Prices where I live are nothing like yours. Is this still useful?

Yes. The books teach a method, not a price list. The Five-Line Audit works on any bottle in any shop, because it reads what is printed on the label and then compares it with your local shelf price. The named bottles are examples. Swap in what your shop stocks.

Is this just the videos written down?

No. The videos rank bottles. Rankings date as soon as prices move. The books give you the method behind the rankings, so you can judge a bottle I have never mentioned.

I have been drinking whisky for years. Is this beginner stuff?

Your First Six Bottles is written for beginners and says so. The Brand Tax is not. It covers strength, chill filtration, colouring, age statements, no-age-statement bottles, sourced whisky and same-house pricing. If a bottle you used to love has gone up while the liquid went down, that is the book you will use.

Will you tell me I am drinking it wrong?

No. Water, ice, mixers and ordinary glasses are all in The Home Bar, as tools. The only rule is that you choose the serve on purpose.

What do I get and how do I get it?

Three PDF ebooks, 326 pages in total: Your First Six Bottles (121), The Home Bar (111) and The Brand Tax (94). After payment you land on a download page. Read them on a phone, tablet or computer straight away.

What if I do not like them?

Use the support form within 30 days and you get a full refund. You keep the PDFs.

Is it only Scotch?

No. Scotch and bourbon get the most pages. Your First Six Bottles crosses into rye and four whisky countries. The Home Bar serves rum, brandy and liqueurs as well. The Brand Tax reads cognac labels too.

Do the books give valuation or resale advice?

No. These are books for drinking. The Home Bar helps you identify an inherited bottle without putting a value on it. The Brand Tax refuses resale as a reason to buy.

One wrong bottle costs more than all three books

Tonight, take the most expensive bottle you own and turn it around. Read the strength. Look for the words natural colour and non-chill filtered. If you cannot find them, you already know why you need The Brand Tax.

Get all three books $27

Instant PDF download. 30-day money-back guarantee. You keep the books either way.