"Remember that you get more from the aroma of a wine than the taste so give it time in your glass, don't jump right in," counsels Nord. "Spend 90% of your time smelling and 10% tasting. Also most people seem to taste whites way too cold and reds too warm. Try to keep white around 58-60 degrees and reds around 65 degrees. Most wines lose flavor the colder they get."

Everyone at wine tastings talks about cleansing one's palate after tasting a wine, and Boelk agrees that it's extremely important, but ideas about the best way to do it vary widely.

"My personal preference is water and table water crackers or a plain baguette," says Boelk. "This is one situation where plainer is better. Like, don't pick a rosemary cracker or a cracked black pepper cracker; all of those things are going to alter how you taste your wine. Cookies and chocolates and cheese are all great when you are trying to see how the wine reacts to them but not when you are trying to define what is inherent in the wine. Also, try to move either the cracker or water or whatever you are using around in your mouth a bit -- you're trying to rinse the previous wine out of your mouth."

While Nord agrees on the crackers, he differs on the H20 and even on the need to cleanse.

"Plain crackers with no salt work well," he says. "Plain French bread is OK. Nothing is pretty good, too. Avoid water; especially do not rinse your glass with water. If you must rinse your glass use wine. The water will dilute the next wine much more than the little bit of wine left over in your glass."

While the basics for tasting spirits and beer are similar to tasting wines, there are some key differences.

"Be careful about sticking your nose in the glass like you would with wine," warns Nord. "With spirits hold the glass near the bottom of your chin to get the aroma."

"(Don't) swirl spirits," adds Boelk. "They are a lot higher in alcohol than wine, swirling it will only release more of the alcohol aroma so you will smell that over the inherent characteristics of the liquor. Also, you don't want to wash it all over and around in your mouth like you would wine, that will end your evening pretty quickly. With spirits you want to swallow them right over the tongue and down the hatch. It's the after flavor that you are assessing.

"Beer is judged similar to wine - color, aroma, taste, finish, body -- and foamy head. I find it very interesting and exciting that there is a growing number of beer connoisseurs and there is an amazing assortment of artisanal beers out there to try. Some of which can be aged as much as 10 years! With all of these options one should never be bored."

While spitting during tastings means you won't get toasted - especially important at the those work- and chuch-related events - Boelk and Nord agree that you can wear out your palate.

"I do not like to taste more than 10 wines at any given tasting," says the latter.

"The average tasting is 6-10 wines. You could taste and spit with a palate cleanser easily," says Boelk. "Wine buyers go to tastings of 100-plus bottles spitting the whole way and at a certain point even the trained connoisseur experiences fatigue. But, the average person isn't going to experience that many bottles all at once.

"If for some reason you do get the opportunity to try that many bottles of wine choose the ones you find most interesting or the ones that are suggested to you to try first."