Tastes

The official review is a much rosier presentation of mine:. This stuff smells like an old wooden clothes chest, and tastes much the same. Cedar, bitters and a splash of sweet (presumably the port influence) before a short, hot, ethanol finish. It's not spit-it-out bad, but if I was offered this or a warm bottle of Boone's Farm, I'd take the wine.

The most inoffensive Irish whisky I've ever had. Smooth on the tongue, with notes of Honey Nut Cheerios and Corn Flakes and sugar and very little else. No finish to speak of. This will go well in coffee or tea, but not recommended for much else.

Nose here is nothing special; caramel, very faint banana, a freshly opened bag of bread. The ethyl pretty much covers anything else, and borders on overpowering. Palate is much better. Caramel forward both in flavor and feel, this sets the stage for an accompanying cast of baking spices, dark chocolate covered cherries and clover honey before a moderate wood astringency shows up to provide much needed balance. Is that a dusty graham cracker hiding at the close? Hmmm. If it wasn't so sweet, the wood would be too much. If it didn't have the wood, it would be too sweet. I guess you can balance by having two extremes. This is a nice drink, and stands near the top of the sub-$50 range. If you can find it, it's worth the try.

Bananas Foster slightly overcooked on a charcoal grill. Detailed review to follow. Probably. Update;. After two months in a mostly empty bottle, this has changed. A lot. The overwhelming sweetness is gone. It's still bananas and caramel, but instead of being just that, it's added a few dry layers. Like peanut butter. And dry roasted peanuts. Like a crunchy peanut butter and banana sandwich, on toasted and buttered potato bread, dipped in a side of caramel. This has earned a place on my permanent shelf.

I've had this bottle open for 4 months, and finally decided to finish it and write the review. It's not that I dislike it and don't want to tarnish my oft-stated love of Laphroaig. It's not that I love it and was waiting until I'd built a vocabulary adequate for expressing such greatness. In truth, it's because I didn't really know what to think of it, nor how to express what I was tasting. The nose is so hot that I get alcohol and smoke, and nothing else. No amount of time changes this, and it doesn't evolve for me in any direction. The palate also opens hot, but the gritty dryness goes really well with the overwhelming peat smoke, as if you're literally chewing charcoal (or eating the incredibly over burned skin of a natural-casing hotdog that you left in the fire for way too long). it's enjoyable to me, but it's also very one-note, which is very un-Laphroaig. After many small sips, and much concentration, I can get bits of iodine and seaweed, and the slightest hint of brine, before it closes out with more heat, grit and smoke. Water makes it slightly less aggressive, but doesn't really change the nose or palate. I don't hate on the NAS market because if a whisky tastes good, it doesn't matter how old it is. That being said, this isn't as good as it could (should?) be, and would have been better served with a few more years in the barrel. I'll take the standard 10 CS over this any day.

This is obviously a Campbeltown product. The nose is brine and lemon and grass, with just a touch of smoke, as though from a fire doused the night before. Palate leads with lemons, then lemon oil, then a flash of wet hay and finally the smoke appears and carries it to the short, slightly sweet, clean finish. This is quite good, and something I would gladly drink on a regular basis. The only problem I have is that Springbank exists, and the 10 yr is cheaper and has many of the same flavors (in different proportion) plus a few more, while for only a few dollars more, the Springbank 12yr CS blows this out of the water. It's good, but I think Springbank does it better.

This highlights the sometimes vast differences between store picks and the standard offering. The Total Wine in Charleston has had three different store picks of this, and they've been consistently very good. That consistent goodness prompted me to grab a bottle of the standard fare. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was taking an inattentive big sip right after the first pour. Fire! Boiling Water! Oak branch to the face! Tears! Burning in my nose! Ugh! My third mistake was thinking it would mellow with a little time. Nope! I've finally given up, and mixed this with a bit of Eagle Rare and water, and it's ok. Similar to Wild Turkey 101, but not as smooth or as sweet. There are a lot of better options at this price point, to include the aforementioned Wild Turkey 101. I won't be buying this again.

I'm not going to waste a bunch of time on something this simple: Maker's 46 CS is to Maker's 46 what the 46 is to the regular Maker's Mark. I prefer it to the standard 46, but only barely as the oak is just a bit more than I prefer. Works fine with a small splash of cold water. I think the sweet spot here would be a 5-7 year, 50% ABV. Nice effort, and when I can find it for under $40, I'll grab it.

How much are you supposed to drink before you start paying attention? Umm...err...anywhoooo Finally grabbed a bottle of this after reading all the mostly positive reviews, plus my palate tens to align pretty well with Stephanie's and her review sounded tasty. My opening sentence was only partly in jest; this is one of those drinks that to me is elusive and difficult to pin down. The first nose shows a lot of generic fruit and a slight mustiness. A few sips later and I can pull leather and dust, and the fruits now smell like mincemeat instead of an edible arrangement that's sat out too long. The taste behaves quite the same; initial strong honeysuckle and then a blast of raisins, but subsequent trips to the well reveal that same leather as on the nose, and the raisins combine with the dust to become their slightly drier, more bitter, cousin, currants. There's Christmas spices throughout, and the rich, creamy mouthfeel is a plus. I was surprised to find the finish is actually quite long, leaving that bit of leather and a touch of honey to linger for a solid minute. I should be clear; this is not my preferred style of Scotch. My first sip made me think I'd bought a creamy Macallan, and anyone who's read my reviews knows I'm not a fan of that particular distillery. On second (and third, fourth, and now fifth) visit, I'm starting to see more to this than that first impression. I'm still not 100% certain that sherry doesn't require peat, but this bottle is helping me to work through that dilemma.

A friend read somewhere that this was supposed to be MGP stock, so when I saw a bottle on my way out of the store, I figured I'd give it a go. Nose is very light, mostly ethanol aromatics with just a whiff of sweet. Given a few minutes, soft caramel shows up, but there's really not much happening. Palate starts just like the nose finishes; mild alcohol bite and creamy soft caramel. Sadly, it never really goes anywhere else, with just a touch of drying spiciness before finishing cleanly. It's very inoffensive. Very mild. Very neutral. Very unremarkable.