Tastes

Not a setting for detailed tasting notes. Was on the drinks list at a networking event and everything else was so pricey this seemed like a decent bargain by comparison. Not wowed, but enjoyed the experience. Not sure its a “purist” pour or anything to write your grandkids about, but is a rich dessert in a glass and quite nice to drink at that. Thick, creamy, and decadently sweet with an undercurrent of aged oak astringency. Fruit and barrel notes, some sherry but not a “bomb”. Would drink again at the right price, not worth buying a bottle unless you have $ and like dessert in a glass.

Nice packaging. Great price. Unforgiveable name I am sure is designed explicitly to intrigue but stymie (in equal parts) foreign consumers Light golden brown with an orange tint. Nutty nose - clearly sherried, but done appealingly. Almond extract. Pear. Jasmine. Opens with sweet syrup, then a vegetal cocoa lacking the cream required to make chocolate. Full flavored and sharp, comes off as quite salty (something I also get in the 12 year). A touch of crisp Granny Smith apple tartness. Very much a salted chocolate syrup with pronounced nutty, sherried elements. A rich and weighty distillate. I’ve enjoyed this bottle a lot and is an easy recommendation I’d you like bold sherried single malt at the entry-level price point. Well done and is not hindered by the lack of age statement.

Thought about digging up something special for #300, but more organic to review the any-day pour that ended up in my glass tonight before the bottle ends up empty. Cheers all! A honeyed orange. Slightly above average weight. Like the bottle and packaging. Nose is vanilla, jasmine, and sugar syrup. Orange blossom. Fresh green bean. Butter cookie. The palate brings chocolate orange and vanilla custard. Super creamy for a 10-year. A bit of aspartame tang. Roasted pineapple. Beeswax. Can taste the bourbon cask and a bit of youthful barley. Pretty good - would reach for it again. Nice and direct flavor, good body, but pretty monotone profile with some sharpness. Brash but promising. Not worth it at everyday retail but I like it around $50.

A light honey-orange. Thin body. Floral nose – jasmine, vanilla, Turkish cake. Sweet and light. Creamy and surprisingly viscous. Sweet but not overwhelming. Lemon peel. A raw oat note announces the malt’s youth. Almond. A tad bitter around the periphery. Overall, nothing too objectionable but nothing to write home about. Affordable, but can’t hide its youth. Sweet and simple I don’t regret the bottle but won’t seek a replacement.

A very pale straw yellow. Not a lot of body but leaves a few thin legs. OK. Like it or not, dem boys delivered the concept. Crisp apple balanced by a subtle cereal note. Creamy. Gentle honeysuckle. I find myself tempted to think of grain whisky, but nothing harsh in the nose whatsoever - it's just "simple". Orange blossom water. Pear. Almond. Honeydew. A lilting saccharine spice that builds and recedes gently. Beeswax. Vanilla. Gosh that’s easy to like. Conversely, it may also be tough to love. This is not a brooding, complex, or challenging dram. It’s just light, fruity, and approachable. At sub-$50 I think it competes with any of the typical entry-level age-stated highland/Speyside malts and is clearly the superior to a number of them. If it were less than $40 it'd be a home run.

When traveling for work I've found that big city stores don't tend to go easy on the pocketbook, so I'm drawn to grab a bottle with an unexpectedly reasonable price tag of something that I've never had before. In my naïve mind, this helps justify the expense since on some level I've limited the rampant profiteering, tried something new, and will be forgiven even if it goes unfinished. The entry this time is Paul John "Bold" (i.e. peated NAS), for a reasonable $40 that I doubt I could do better than back home even at modest Midwest prices. This is also my first Indian whisky, so double points awarded says I. Enough about me - the dram is a nice light honey brown. While not overly weighty, it coats the glass with a fair bit of oil. A relatively gentle, sweet and simple nose. Unusual but not unpleasant, it showcases honey, chili pepper, raw cane, and a touch of hay. A very creamy body and neutral simple syrup open the palate, then smoke, pineapple, and roasted chestnut develop along with a pleasing floral character. It's a bit as if Laphroaig 10 and a lightly-aged Barbados rum had a love child. A tingle of baking spices play alongside honeydew. Coconut cream. This is pretty tasty stuff for an approachable price. Yes, it's a little young but it suits the finished product quite well. Some drying aspartame plays spoiler to the primary flavors but this is very approachable, sippable, and competitive at the price point. I'd recommend any peated scotch fans take a waiver and see how it stacks up.

Thick treacly legs. An extremely malty, bready nose. Orange zest in a toasted barley bread. Gives a surprising vegetal note and is persistently tingly to the nostrils, like a Scotchy Ancho Reyes. Some floral notes and fresh sugarcane. The palate holds true to the nose. A biscuity chocolate orange - sweet and bready with a touch of salt. Dried baking ginger and a refined ashiness persists throughout. Is that watermelon? Ashy watermelon? A first in my whisky tasting experience. I have enjoyed this one - toasted, bready dessert with smokey richness that provides both heft and balance. While I like the 12 year , it’s possible that the stock selected for this gives a less cigarette-ash experience, so it feels a bit more refined. Would drink again, but only if I could find it below typical retail - say <= $70 or so, the competition starts outclassing it above that price.

Neat. Glencairn. A light to middling honeyed orange color, not much viscosity in the glass. Yep! That’s sherried. And a blend! The nose is assertively musty, young, and more than a bit sharp. Strong pear leads but so sharp and zesty it doesn’t make sense. Maybe cherry cola. Some malt enters the chat, along with oats and hay. Muted spring wildflowers. Ok… can this be this be the first time I’ve pieced this together? Took my first sip, and the next nosing lacked 80% of that sharpness now that the devil’s water had breached the gates. Is that sharpness just your body’s warning against toxic ethanol, but once it has lost the fight it just gives up sounding the warning alarms (or is so inundated from the inside it is now normalized)? Yep, it’s just gone. OK, sorry everybody – instantly invalidated my nosing notes but I’m leaving that in so I can document my a-ha moment. I guess I’m just not usually this patient before taking my first sip. Rich and waxy on the palate, but still spiky and young. Honey. Golden raisin. Clove. Orange pith. Aspartame. Pinch of cinnamon. Softwood (evergreen) sawdust. A vein of gentian and licorice. Getting some callbacks to a Springbank 10 flavor profile, but that is a superior spirit in a number of ways, IMO. Definitely brings a splash of musty sherry. The finish drops flavor quickly but holds that bracing saccharine zing impressively (unless my palate is just a wimp today) and even rebuilds to flash across the tongue, numbing the tongue and cheeks and drawing saliva with a pinch of char and light cherry. This grows on me as some of the spiky bits level out and the palate acclimates. Not a home run, but a competitor. Still hard to pick this over sherry-forward single malts that can usually be found for similar prices, like Glendronach 12, Glenfarclas 10-12, Springbank 10 (maybe that time has passed us by), Craigellachie 13, etc.

Makers is easy-going and enjoyable for me without ever feeling the need for much analysis. To date, I have not found much enjoyment in MM cask strength - it seems to turn the flaws to 11 without a similar boost to the enjoyable parts. I do, however, give it a solid A for cost - there are very few cask strength options available in that price range. Enter MM101… oozing potential that it could be an improved and elegant version of the flagship offering, but risking stepping over the line toward the imbalance of the cask strength. So, naturally, let’s amp the proof do some analysis! A vegetal simple syrup on the nose. Cooked bell peppers and a hint of anise. Corn. Toasted bread. Not too dynamic, it just keeps coming back with the same notes. Very easy to nose - no ethanol spice. Altogether not bad, but not captivating either. Time and oxygen mellow all this - deeper into the bottle the nose trends closer to caramel corn, but doesn’t lose its vegetal edge. The palate offers a strikingly minty pour - this might be a bottled julep. It keeps that vegetal/grassy note I find in all Makers but is amplified with proof - overwhelming in the cask strength, subtle undertone at 45%. But then maple syrup enters the chat. Caramel. Vanilla. Lactose. Hot honey. Mint creme (think Andes without chocolate). The proof is right on with this one, achieving a very nice balance of spice and sweet, but it does not obscure that vegetal DNA in any way. If it works for you, dive in - this is pretty vibrant for $30. If that gives you pause, steer clear of MM with an elevated proof. I usually find myself in the latter category but this isn’t offensive by any measure and mellows quite nicely with time and air, regressing toward more traditional bourbon flavors.

Pale yellow with a nondescript weight. Citrus, peat, and cereal malt define the nose, which carries a modest sharpness. Some chalk. An undercurrent of floral vegetation. Smoke is fairly muted on the nose in my opinion, masked into a more complicated experience. Starts sweet and mild, showcasing a malty palate dominated by vanilla and citrus, but quickly evolves into alkalinity/ash and eventually finish affirmatively on the dry side. The smoke is much more prominent on the palate than the nose. I want to say it shares a kinship with the maritime salty lemon curd styles, but takes a definite turn on its way to the alkaline finale. On the whole, this Jekyll & Hyde experience is complimentary, provides much appreciated complexity, and is pretty rewarding. Not a lot of benefit in reviewing a discontinued product, but I’ve enjoyed this bottle start to finish and think it’s a very fair value below $55.