Tastes

It's conceivable that I might finally be coming around to that funky Beam yeast. Or maybe the intrinsic quality here is good enough otherwise that I'm willing to tolerate it. Neither the strongest (Booker's) nor the weakest (Basil Hayden's) of the Beam Small Batch collection, Baker's sometimes feels like an afterthought. But it's a pretty tasty afterthought. Nose of honey, caramel, leather, tobacco, vanilla, char, and some caramel corn/nut-mix hybrid. Dark, dried fruits, maple sap, even, and a hint of cinnamon. Surprisingly mellow at full proof (hot, but not blinding), there's a nice initial fruitiness (red berries?) on the taste, followed by caramel corn, serious barrel char, some nuttiness, and dry vanilla. Tobacco and leather. More cinnamon, but also some brining spice (caraway? anise?). The weakness here is the long, dry finish (almost like licking burnt timber) that leans a bit yeasty and sour. All told, it's sweeter and richer than Knob Creek, but lacks the flavour punch of Booker's. Given the comparatively steep price, I'd ultimately prefer Booker's, and that finish needs some work--but it's still a nice, relaxing glass of bourbon.

Fairly generic, save for a kind yeasty, dough-y note that almost (almost) evokes a pot still Irish whiskey. Amber colour (not egregiously coloured); nose of dough, bananas, lemon, cake batter, vanilla (lemon cake?). Cedar, fresh wood. Fresh cut apples (apple skins!), some spice (cinnamon, ginger). Herbal tea and grass. Soft taste, mildly flavoured--well-tamed heat, there's more leafy, herbal greens, a touch of mint, lemon, vanilla, fresh wood. Something a touch tart. Sour apple skins. A bit of smoke (is Auchentoshan even peated?)! Cough drops. As it sits, it does actually develop a bit more character, and there's some white pepper on the finish, leading to some back-of-throat heat and lingering sour apple/lemon/dry wood. It's good, it's well-made--but the Auchentoshan profile has never done much for me, and this guy's no exception. Pleasant glass, but no reason to buy a bottle.

Four Roses has disappeared from shelves in my local market (Alberta, Canada), and that's a shame because this juice is--for me--the perfect balance of price and quality. This was the bourbon that convinced me I genuinely loved bourbons. Lots of spice on the nose (clove, cinnamon), a caramelized vanilla charred oakiness. Brown sugar, a bit of caramel. Butterscotch. Sweet light fruits. Big cherry. Pretty noticeable rye, and a nice sweet fruit jelly/jam. Warm, sweet taste, with just enough rye spice to keep things balanced. Vanilla, baking spices, brown sugar, apricot, and sweet red fruits--lots of cherry. Medium finish with caramel, vanilla, and baking spices. It's not the most complex whiskey I've ever had, but it's amongst the most aggressively likeable--sweet, spicy, clean. Pair it with a steak, sip it thoughtfully, use it for cocktails, or nurse a glass while otherwise occupied; it's tremendously versatile--I miss it a lot.

Another one that makes me wish Distiller allowed half-stars. This whisky ain't a three, but it's not quite a four; it suffers from many of the flaws of its younger sibling (a faintly synthetic character, weak integration of flavours, gratuitous artificial colouring), but nevertheless manages to be an enjoyable drink. Nose of smoke (BBQ pulled pork), lemon zest, molasses, strawberries and blueberries. Slight red wine acidity or tartness. A touch leafy, herbal, perhaps some tobacco leaf. Body is nice and full (considering the proof), though a bit hot. Red wine sweetness--berries, some orchard fruits--and then a blast of that generic Bowmore smoke (not peaty, not campfire-y, just . . . smoke; like it was created in a lab). A bit of lemon zest (a note shared with the 12 Year Old), a touch of dark chocolate, some grape skins. Sweet turning to dry, with a bit of a smoke-and-mothballs finish--slightly meaty, somewhat woody.The sherry finish and the smoke here aren't super well-integrated, and that's a weakness of the whisky overall. The smell of this stuff is quite lovely, but the taste is a bit all-over-the-map--it doesn't know whether it wants to lead with the fruit or lead with the smoke. A decent value for what you're getting (there just aren't too many affordable sherried Islays), but ultimately nothing to write home about.

I'm a genuine believer that Glenfiddich--as a distillery--doesn't get the love it deserves from the whisky snobs. It's damning with faint praise to say so, but there's no one out there who does non-craft presentation single malts better than them. And when they put their mind to it (as with the cask-strength 15 Distillery Edition) they can be *brilliant*. But I have to admit, this one--finished in new oak--just didn't work for me. Colour is strangely orange. Smell is off-brand orange soda, tropical fruits (mango, papaya), artificial sweetener, sawdust, lumber, stale beer. Vanilla and pear that occasionally start to mesh into a fruity, yogurt-y creaminess. White grape, floral, and then something like a throat lozenge? It's a bit all over the map. The taste is light and a bit thin--no surprise at 40%--with lots of sweetness. Pears, apples, peaches, more orange soda, melon, cinnamon. There's a distant resemblance to bourbon (credit the new oak), but it's nebulous. Lemon Lifesavers. But the sweetness goes dry pretty quickly, leaving some bitterness, something metallic, and a hint of fried plantain chips (?). A short finish of bitterness, chalky vanilla, and fruits. I wanted to like this whisky more than I did, but then again, I'm generally not crazy about "new oak" finishes. It's decent enough, but I'd happily take the (cheaper) 15 Solera over this particular experiment

Culled from Sazerac's 200,000+ barrels of sourced Canadian whisky (most of which goes into bottom-shelf blends). Colour is generic amber. Nose is typical Canadian: butterscotch/caramel, maple (though not cloying), raw grain, dusty rye. Earthy, slate, minerality. Cedar, lemongrass, chalky. Faint dill, even fainter mint. Some tangy citrus. Wide ranging, but weak. Even weaker taste: green apples, faint wood, slight maple, pickle, ginger. Vanilla, caramel. Hot ginger beer on the finish, with some orchard fruits, pickle juice and some tannic bitterness. The whole affair is alternating sweet-and-spicy, which is really what Canadian whisky tends to go for. It's semi-interesting, and doesn't fall too far into the traps of a lot of other Canadian whiskies (it's sweet but not too sweet; it's at least got a hint of spice; its vanilla/caramel notes feel natural rather than synthetic), but it's still hampered by the baggage of the style it inhabits. Ultimately, a good rendition of a style I don't care for much.

Genuinely awful. A "white whisky" whose gimmick is that it isn't new make; it's *actually* aged whisky. . . . It's just then coal-filtered to remove any colour. Surprise, surprise, though: removing colour also removes any flavour, and what's left resembles a bad vodka. Clear colour. Smells of citrus soda (maybe it's the colour influencing my perception), grain, and just a hint of butterscotch-caramel. Your typical Canadian profile, only worse, because it's also got some serious paint-thinner character as well. Strangely sharp while also being super bland. And that contradiction continues on the taste, which is somehow both watery and sharp. Raw grain. Fire. Synthetic butterscotch/caramel. Vanilla ice cream. If I could give zero stars, I would. White Owl is genuinely putrid; it takes all the weaknesses of Canadian whisky as a genre to begin with, and it makes them even worse; hell, it doesn't even mix well.

The kind of bottle that you buy, savour, love, and then promptly forget about entirely and never re-purchase. An archetypal Speyside whisky, the Glen Grant 16 is all fruit and floral on the nose: fresh apples, red and green, and fresh pears (the bottle's tasting notes don't lie about the intense orchard fruits), but also baking apples and candied apples—caramel-covered dessert treats. Fruit-juice candies. Vanilla. Restrained oak. Cinnamon? Grassy. Fresh flowers. Body is quite light, edging toward watery, and the taste is really just a more restrained repetition of the nose. Throw in some beeswax for good measure. Short, dry finish with a bit of unexpected herbal nuttiness (given the fruits dominating everything else). A great summer whisky, and a really enjoyable flavour profile. But a bit pricey for what you're getting, and a flavour profile that other distilleries do even better (Glenfiddich 15 Distillery Edition comes to mind).

One of the least interesting malts of Scotland. It's no surprise that the bulk of this stuff ends up in Johnnie Walker given how nondescript and middle-of-the-road it is. Tart nose, with sour apples, sharp oak, and some intense floral notes. Slight smoke, lemon zest, alcohol bite even at 40% ABV, honey, grass, and hay. Thin taste that's initially quite sweet (apples, vanilla), with more smoke than expected. Then some real bite. Citrus tang? Pepper? Herbal notes, maybe something planty or floral. Short, dry finish. A real "meh" for me: it's decently well-rounded, and more floral than some of those better known, fruitier Speysides, but it's shockingly overpriced. Truth be told, about the most interesting thing about Cardhu is tracing the effect it has on the Johnnie Walker line-up (I always thought the smoke of JW Black was all Talisker, but it actually seems like Cardhu is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here).