In New York, Laila Gohar Pours a Highland Park and Sees a Whole Scene

Hand Laila Gohar, who works out of New York, a glass of Highland Park and she will not reach for the usual tasting checklist. Where most drinkers name the notes one at a time, she lets the whisky suggest an entire picture, complete and composed, before she says a word about flavor. It is the way a good buyer walks a house: not room by room, but all at once, taking the measure of the whole before the inventory. For a city that prizes that kind of eye, it is a pleasure to see it turned on something as small as a single pour.

With reporting from Surface.