Tastes

Lot No. 40 Canadian Rye Whiskey 86 proof 1/19/18 A: N: Wow! Deep, deep, baked sweet cinnamon and brown bread crust. Malt thickness and starchy sweetness with overtones of milk chocolate and brandy-poached cherries, like some malted milk ball-cherry cordial love child. T: Light in body, but creamy in texture, like soy milk. Some astringent huskiness, or toasted parchment flavor hits you and surprises you, but it becomes welcomed as you acclimate. Eventually, it begins to taste like burnt sugar and baked raisins on a wheat bran biscotti. The charred cinnamon slowly shows itself eventually, but briefly at the end of the toasted flavors. Poached pears emerge. F: The flavors blend together into a dull roar without spice, but with just a lingering resiny, tree sap like coating, bitter, and a tad medicinal, but not plasticky or unpleasant. If you wait long enough between sips, you can taste the full experience of biting into a whole navel orange. O: Overall, an interesting drink, some familiar flavors in a rye, and some new ones to boot! There's a lack of some of the herbal qualities of rye, but definitely the tannic spice, and even some toasted and burnt characters that are not the norm in my experience. I will return to this everyday-drinking type of rye.

Extremely well rounded. Everything you like in a Highland with its fruit floral sweetness and light grain taste, plus a puff of barrel age and vanilla, and some woody soot to top it off, but not too much.

Ardbeg Uigedail Nose: Lemon, lime, apple, pear, and then sweet malt and sweet Tokaji wine. A hint of crisp salty air, but very little tell-tale medicinal, oily, smoky, or earthy aroma, if any... even after letting it open. Surprisingly fruity and sweet, for Ardbeg, even knowing it's sherry-finished. There is a bit of old charred cask scent behind it all, but no bandaids or campfires, shockingly, and... sadly. The nose is delightful actually, but shockingly polite, reminding me more of an eau de vie than an Islay scotch. Taste & Body: Very similar to the 10yr at first, but much less graphite and turf, with flamboyantly obvious fruit like percieved in the nose. The oiliness is subdued by comparison, though by no means thin. Luckily, the familiar brine is still full on here. The more present and loud fruit and malt flavors create a harmony unheard in the Ten, distracting from the bold soloists of oiliness, fish bones, and weeds. The sour, sweet, floral, herbal, medicinal flavors are all there, but in concert as a choir rather than the war cry of the front-line. Enhanced honey-like, pomaceous sweetness seems to bring forward sharp and acidic raw cocoa, sour white burley tobacco, and a markedly more noticeable meyer lemon flesh flavor (than percieved in the Ten). Rather than decisive, serial assaults, strikes to the senses, the approach of the Uigeadail is concerted, marching in a phalanx at you to the tune of snare and fife rather than charging with bloody war-cry, bolstered by hogskin drum and war-horn. Finish: Though I can set aside my preferences and expectations for the nose and taste, I will have to say, some points are lost on the finish. There's nothing overly wrong, but nothing noticeably right either. The finish is so short, there are only moments before you may forget you've had a sip at all... and that's especially shocking when you consider how at least some salt and smoke should be the feathers stuck to your tarred tongue! Overall: The flavors are big and deep, but very tight. Definitely, the coordination has finesse and reminds me of Talisker in this way, but not necessarily what one might have come to appreciate from Ardbeg. The concert of flavors definitely makes for what some may call a more "refined" product, but I also would say that it makes for a less "robust" product where none of the elements shine brightly for any moment in their own rights. Let's call your typical Islay William Wallance, and the Uigeadail is Robert the Bruce? 4/5

Ardbeg 10 yr Nose: Right off the bat you smell mineral oil, green pear skins, near-ripe Seckel pears, the flesh of meyer lemon, then something like wet sand and burning clay. Initial Taste: WOw, it punches you! Like a black peppercorn and juniper berry tincture suspended in mineral oil that you set on fire. Chewing this sip by sip, perhaps with a drop of water seems necessary. Body and mid-palate: As slick as fish oil, with an extrmely savoury character. The salt of it puckers your mouth without coming across like a salty pretzel or an anchovy filet.. and yet, it is so very savoury, I am reminded greatly of jiucai, that is, a pungent Chinese garlic oniongrass. There is also the slightest trace of fish bones from the oiliness, pungency, and minerality in combination. To me, the peat is not quite so smoke at all, but dense and earthy like mulch or potting soil heavy with sulfur. Just a touch of water, opening up, and becoming familiar with the drink, reveals the meyer lemon, but with no trace of the pear. THe sand and burning clay show up as well, and wood like that from the burning torches and wood-handled pitchforks of angry villagers. Finish: So very long, like the right hook you took in a bar fight with a Scotsman that made you consider seeing a dentist after a week of applying analgesic. Strangely, thesmoke shows up in the end. Big-time burnt honey flavour. Then, much like cigar ash and the tar-heavy last puffs of a maduro cigar, slightly acrid and sour, but welcome. Even stranger is that the faintest bit of Seckel pear peeks out despite being absent initially and in the mid-palate... probably cowering in fear. There's not much spice and yet, your mouth is left numb, but not like from cloves, rather, camphor... and a shot of Novacaine... and the bloody gauze to boot. Then a floral mustiness like dead flowers pressed between the pages of an old encyclopedia. Overall: Undoubtedly, this drink is abrasizeand forward, "cavalier" even, but I hesitate to call it "harsh;" The flavors otherwise cloying in isolation passionately grapple with one another, entwined, melding in the ring of the palate like two wrestling brothers, angry and intense and sweaty, but making some strange beauty of the seemingly crude rivalry in the glory of the struggle and resolution. Take this drink when you wish you grow your beard hair a few inches. In summation, dinosaurs, peat bog mummies, witches, and refuseof orchards and flower gardens were cremated in a seaside glass factory... this mixture was fermented and distilled, and aged beneath a wharf.

Maker’s Mark Private Select Fine Wine & Good Spirits 2 Baked American Pure 2 4 Maker’s 46 3 Roasted French Mocha 1 Toasted French Spice FINAL SCORE 80/100 Vital Statistics: Distillery/Blender: Maker’s Mark Category: Kentucky Bourbon Age Statement: NAS, at least 5 years 9 months Proof: 110.9 Mash bill/blend: <50% corn, unknown % red wheat, no rye Tasting Date: 05/11/2018 Nose: 17/20 Delicate and sweet, toffee mostly, with some apple and pear nectar, like an estery Belgian witbier, with light coriander overtones. Nothing overly exciting, but nothing harsh, with alcohol well-hidden. Initial Taste: 14/15 Spritely pop of lemon zest covered in near-burnt sugar. Body/Mouthfeel: 6/10 Definitely light and gentle on the palate. It is surprisingly light, with a pretty high viscosity despite how sugar it is. Though, there is very little spice or astringency to speak of, and so the light touch is in concert with the theme of this drink. Some may find it lacking in mouthfeel, expecting it to have a more silky touch for something light and smooth, like a Glenmorangie, but it is definitely consistent with the spritely nature of the drink, and so not entirely a fault. Taste: 14/15 Zesty, yet creamy lemon curd with citrusy-sweet-tart preserved lemon filling at the bottom, frothy mousse topping, maple drizzle, and chocolate shavings to cap it off with still-milky, yet semi-sweet and slightly toasty piquant cocoa-roundness. Finish: 16/20 A lovely continuation of the taste, with a bit of something like the sip of mild espresso and biscotti and lemon peel you had to wash down the last bit of lemon curd. It fades after a bit because of the light touch, but it makes it very easy to sip frequently and quietly. Value: 6/10 Value is hard to speak about. It’s a special bottle, and quite tasty, but some may feel the body in particular is a weak point for something you’d pay over $70 for. Overall: 7/10 A memorable drink actually. The toffee and lemony crème-brulee-esque combo here with maple sugar sweetness all through works so well, even I enjoy it, and I don’t like sugary-sweet. The persistent lemony character perfectly masks that corn “tang” that often puts a damper on an otherwise fine bourbon. The major drawback here is a mouthfeel on the light side, and a finish that’s also perhaps a bit too delicate for the proof.