Tastes
-
Appearance: Pale gold, transparent with no particulates. Aroma: Leather car seats, raw tobacco, wormwood, green anise, grass clippings, wood (but not oak cask – wood like freshly snapped twigs), and a hint of both Cointreau and sambuca. Palate: There is an initial moderate sweetness but as the palate develops a bright herbal spice note emerges. Leather, citron zest, caraway seed and yes there is a flavor of tobacco but it’s not as I expected. This is not in any way smoky. The aftertaste is moderate and there is a lingering subtle spicy, almost tingling sensation on the tongue. You might expect a tobacco liqueur to be smoky in character, and if it was made by a mass-market producer then indeed it probably would be heavily laced with artificial smoke to give that profile. However what we have here is something far more sophisticated. This is tobacco presented as an elegant, semi-sweet, herbal ingredient. If it tastes a little unusual at first then imagine yourself chewing a piece of green tobacco leaf rather than smoking. It has a fresh, crisp and almost minty quality coupled with a slightly tingling attribute, as with fermented chewing tobacco. However, although it retains the character of tobacco, it does not contain its harmful components and while devoid of nicotine it still has that taste. There is also a slight reminiscence of both absinthe and green Chartreuse about this. Jade Perique Liqueur de Tabac (to use the proper full name) was created by Ted Breaux, the mastermind behind the Jade absinthe range which is arguably the most authentic contemporary expression of absinthe. Being born and bred in Louisiana it is not surprising that he would eventually turn his attention to perique tobacco, a type of tobacco found only in that region. If you are not familiar with perique it is a singularly aromatic, fruity and intense tobacco normally used in small quantities in pipe mixtures and hand-made specialist cigarette blends. It’s an unusual liqueur that I am enjoying very much. It is not produced in large quantities so may be hard to obtain, but if you do see a bottle it is not expensive and definitely worth a try. “Very Good” : 87/100 (4.25 stars)70.0 AUD per Bottle
-
1770 Glasgow Triple Distilled Release No.1
Single Malt — Lowland, Scotland
Reviewed January 10, 2024 (edited January 13, 2024)Nose: Green apple, barley sugar, gooseberries, a little vanilla and balsa wood sawdust. There is a strong spirit quality to the aroma. Palate: Spicy, somewhat hot arrival - cereal and barley sugar with hot cinnamon and a little chili. Some orchard fruit on the mid palate but little else. The texture is neutral. Finish: Medium/short. Not much apart from a sharp, lingering hot spice. I bought this bottle a while back when Glasgow Distillery was releasing their first products but unlike the “Original” and “Peated” expressions (both of which I liked) I’ve only now got around to opening this one. It’s my least favourite Glasgow Distillery “1770” series bottling so far. The fruity, unctuous nature of the distillate I have sensed on everything else is missing here, most likely because of the extra round of distillation, I guess. The hot, sharp spice notes cut through mixers and betray a sour aftertaste when diluted. It’s young, bright, hot and metallic overall. There have been subsequent Triple Distilled expressions, but on the basis of this batch I don’t feel interested enough to try them. “Adequate” : 74/100 (2.25 stars)72.0 AUD per Bottle -
Manly Spirits "Coastal Stone" Xplore
Blended — Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Reviewed January 7, 2024 (edited January 10, 2024)Nose: Hay, green grass clippings, green apple skins, lemon sponge cake, pencil shavings, ethanol. Palate: Slightly sweet and mildly spicy arrival but without a great deal of presence. It’s very light with some citrus, apple and barley-sugar in the mid-palate but it lacks depth and feels diluted, with a vodka-ish neutral grain spirit flavour clearly apparent. The texture is uninteresting. Finish: Short. Muted cereal and green fruits that fade quickly into an aftertaste of neutral spirit. Although Australia does not have “blended whisky” as a legal classification, this stuff is what anyone would understand to be the equivalent of a blended scotch. It is a mixture of about 40% single malt whisky from Manly Spirits and 60% grain spirit from the huge Manildra industrial distillation plant at Bomaderry on the southern NSW coast. However, don’t confuse the “grain spirit” component of this with Scottish grain whisky, because Manildra’s grain spirit is neutral alcohol primarily sold to local gin producers as a base spirit. It has virtually no aroma or flavor of its own and relies entirely on cask contribution for any character. And that’s the big issue here. Manly Spirits distillate is pleasant but it has a light, grassy quality and needs time in a forceful cask to really shine. However, when you blend that distillate with neutral alcohol and then age it for just the legal minimum of two years you get a whisky with very little presence. It’s OK in a highball with lots of ice and soda water, but anything with flavor like Coke or dry ginger completely swamps it and it is practically undetectable as whisky in a cocktail. It has no glaring faults or off-notes so it’s not a bad whisky as such, but it is extremely light and thin. It is outclassed by any cheaper priced blended scotch and I will be amazed if it is still available in a year's time because I just can’t see many people buying this more than once. It’s adequate, just, but completely ignorable so don’t bother. “Adequate” : 74/100 (2.25 stars)75.0 AUD per Bottle -
Grosperrin MMC 1 Pineau des Charentes
Other Brandy — Charante-Maritime, France
Reviewed January 7, 2024 (edited January 13, 2024)Nose: Sweet white grape, peach, apricot, cognac and a subtle background of very fine oak. It’s similar to the aroma of a late harvest dessert wine or sauternes, but finer, more ethereal and very slightly flinty. Palate: Very well balanced fresh and aged grape flavours that display both sweet and dry characteristics along with a touch of acidity, faint beeswax and dried fruit. Like the nose, the palate is reminiscent of a dessert white wine but the texture here is different, being crisp and lighter. Finish: Short. Demi-sec fruitiness that fades quickly, but agreeably. "MMC" is an abbreviation of "moût muté au cognac" which literally translates as "cognac-mutated grape must". It is basically a form of pineau, a mixture of fresh white grape must (the freshly pressed juice including the skins and stems) and cognac produced from the same estate. The blended liquid is then aged in oak casks for 7 years. Grosperrin produces three types of “MMC” with differing ages, this “MMC1” being the youngest. It should be served chilled and is a delightful aperitif, either neat or mixed 50/50 with champagne. It also works very well as a light after-dinner alternative to a digestif. We consumed the bottle over four days and it lasted well in the refrigerator, but I took care to evacuate the air from the bottle each time. Initially it was very crisp with nice acidity and an almost spritzy quality, but on the second and third days it showed more sweetness. By day four it had the faintest touch of developing sourness, and although it was still very pleasant I doubt it would have survived another day. Oh, and if you disturb the bottle too much when pouring you will notice many faint black flecks (which eventually settle). This is normal and nothing to worry about. “Very Good” : 85/100 (4 stars)65.0 AUD per Bottle -
Archie Rose Double Malt
Blended Malt — Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Reviewed December 6, 2023 (edited January 10, 2024)Nose: Marshmallow, banana, bubblegum, freshly-sawn timber, stone-fruits, oatmeal, vanilla custard, caramel. As it opens in the glass a little rye spice and Vegemite (!) comes through. Palate: Sweet and soft on the arrival, with an oily texture. The development is slow and limited but shows stewed fruits, cappuccino and a little malted milk. There is a vague reminiscence of bourbon about this. The texture is oily and creamy. Finish: Medium/short. Sweet, fruity, inoffensive but a bit fast. With repeated sips it turns a little sour in the aftertaste. This whisky is fairly new to the Australian market and is the first major product from Archie Rose’s new distillery at Banksmeadow in Sydney. It is now one of the largest whisky distilleries in Australia and their production philosophy rivals that of Waterford in complexity. Six different malts (different strains, toasting, fermentation, etc) are separately distilled before being matured in an array of different casks. The final result is blended and solera-married to create the product. Their two “core” products before now were their “single malt” and “hybrid malted rye” whiskies, both of which are very good – particularly the hybrid malted rye. These are still being produced but this new whisky is a blending of some parts of what constitutes each of the two other malts It is essentially a "lite" blend of malted barley spirit and malted rye spirit targeted at bartenders and home bars. It was launched together with a dry gin and a vodka and the three products form what the distillery is calling its “Fundamental Spirits” range. Put bluntly, this is a marketing exercise by Archie Rose to capture part of the market that is currently dominated by imported spirits. In that context, and at the price, it is a good product that fulfills its mission objective but when compared to any Scottish single malt or blended malt it is decidedly ordinary. However, remember that this is designed as a “cocktail” whisky for mixing, and consider it as such. It is better than I expected and will certainly work well as a mixer, but I doubt I’ll be taking it as a neat dram or buying it again – it’s just not interesting enough. Oh, and the label is one of the worst I have ever seen on a bottle of booze. Honestly, what idiot approved such a banal label? It looks like the packaging you would find on a bottle of bottom-shelf cooking oil. “Above Average” : 82/100 (3.25 stars)85.0 AUD per Bottle -
Ben Nevis 21 year (1998/2019) Hidden Spirits
Single Malt — Highlands, Scotland
Reviewed December 6, 2023 (edited January 10, 2024)Nose: The nose is sharp, intense and seemingly aggressive on first contact, but that is deceptive as this needs at least 15 minutes to rest in the glass before any serious analysis can be undertaken. Once the immediate alcohol vapours have dissipated the full bouquet can be appreciated, and my goodness what a wonderful and complex nose it is. Meaty and full-bodied with umami qualities that are off the scale. Smoked ham, barbecued beef, dark soy sauce, perique tobacco, toasted walnuts, Brazil nuts, malt extract, beef consommé and an elegant cloak of rancio. A showpiece of muscular single malt whisky aromas. With the addition of water the nose is initially subdued but over time it returns in a gentler and arguably even better integrated form, but I did miss the sublime presence of the neat nose. Over extended time a sweet honeyed aroma comes through. 9/10 Palate: A sweet, heavy, unctuous arrival that explodes into a sumptuous array of oloroso-cask influences. This intense sherry presence builds and builds over time, extending into the final echoes of the aftertaste but never taking control or masking the panoply of complex flavor facets. The sherry is half of the experience but it shares the stage with many other fine actors. Tobacco, leather, nuts, chocolate, coffee and old, old oak. Water lowers the intensity of the palate but adds integration and evolves a touch of spice (ginger, cinnamon) which is very pleasant. Water does not harm the palate but neither is it preferable – just different. Personally I preferred it neat. The texture is what angels dream about. 10/10. Finish: Stewed fruits, sherry and oak trailing into an exquisitely long and increasingly dry aftertaste. It's captivating and has incredible persistence. I was still tasting this whisky an hour after finishing the dram and it was continuing to unfurl on the palate. Water has little effect on the finish apart from bringing out further dry, briny notes that are very pleasant. 9/10. A magnificent single malt whisky, and a privilege to taste. Hidden Spirits simply hit this one right out of the park. It's a wonderful experience from start to finish with the trademark Ben Nevis gritty, bold, west highland distillate character expertly illuminated by sherry maturation. This is far removed from the usual suspect sweet sherry monsters of Speyside or the eastern highlands. It is a magisterial whisky that was 100% matured in a very fine ex-oloroso cask (#BN9819) and while the sherry influence is right in your face for the entirety of the experience it never seems intrusive. It’s a masterpiece and I only wish I could find another bottle. I ended up nursing this dram for almost 2 hours, enjoying it first neat and then watered to about 45%. The one comfort I have is that the core-range Ben Nevis 10 year old still gets you a long way towards the rapture of this whisky at an affordable price. Ben Nevis has always been one of my favourite distilleries and this whisky reinforces my long-held conviction that the west coast of the Scottish highlands (together with the neighbouring Hebridean islands and the Kintyre peninsula) is where all the best whisky comes from. “Outstanding” : 91/100 (5 stars)500.0 AUD per Bottle -
Waterford Peated Woodbrook
Single Malt — Ireland
Reviewed November 29, 2023 (edited January 10, 2024)Waterford Tasting, The Oak Barrel, Sydney, November 27th 2023, Whisky #6 Nose: A strong, clear aroma of almost greasy, oily peat smoke. Chocolate, roasted nuts, coffee and underneath it all (instead of being in the forefront as usual with Waterford) there is the signature fragrant white-bread and gristy cereal distillate. Palate: Big, oily and mouth-coating smoky arrival. Espresso, chicory, chocolate, herbs, and a touch of brine show up in the later palate. Finish: Long. Smoked cereal, fruit and berry flavours that slowly fade into a distant echo. A satisfying and very well integrated peated whisky. At 74ppm this is the most heavily peated whisky that Waterford has yet released, and the character of the peating is more like an Islay whisky than anything they have done before. In fact, this is somewhat reminiscent of Port Charlotte Heavily Peated. Distilled in 2019 and bottled in mid 2023, this is technically 3 years old. Maturation was approximately 1/3 virgin US and French oak, 1/3 first-fill ex-bourbon barrel and 1/3 vin doux naturel cask so this shows more cask-influence than is typical for Waterford, with sweet vanilla and berry notes being contributed. The fact that this is barely noticeable is testament to the excellent integration with the peat smoke. As with the Peated Fenniscourt I tasted prior to this expression, there were no rubbery, sulphurous aromas or off-notes on the palate whatsoever, either neat or when watered. “Very Good” : 85/100 (4 stars) -
Waterford Peated Fenniscourt 1.1
Single Malt — Ireland
Reviewed November 29, 2023 (edited February 3, 2024)Waterford Tasting, The Oak Barrel, Sydney, November 27th 2023, Whisky #5 Nose: Crisp, fresh barley grist, warm herb bread, goat’s cheese, feta, a light cloak of herbal, earthy peat (since writing this I’ve looked at other reviews and many mention rubber notes, but I did not get any hint at all of thiols or sulphides. In fact, I particularly noted their absence). Palate: Sweet and cereal in the arrival with excellent oiliness. Berries and orchard fruits in the background of the later palate and an overall mild, dry smoke presence. It’s an elegant, restrained and relaxed style of peating that I did not expect from a nominal 38ppm level. Finish: Medium/long. Fresh bread, a dusting of pepper. The peat smoke eases gradually into the aftertaste with a gentle return to sweetness. Totally unlike any Islay peated whisky, and not very similar to peated whisky from any other part of Scotland either, but neither is this like any peated Irish whiskey I’ve had. It’s very much its own thing and the more you explore it the more it reveals its Waterford distillate foundation with clean, perfectly produced malted barley distillate at the heart of proceedings. This was part of the Arcadian Series, distilled in 2018 and bottled in 2022 but technically just 3 years of age. Maturation was in virgin American and French oak, with a smaller component aged in vin doux naturel casks. In many ways, this whisky is a peated expression of Waterford’s Knockroe Edition 1.1. A very impressive whisky that exemplifies how delightful young peated whisky can be, and how dull and lifeless many products from the major distilleries have become regardless of (and maybe even because of) greater age. I loved it and bought a bottle on the night. “Very Good” : 86/100 (4 stars)169.0 AUD per Bottle -
Waterford Killone Single Farm Origin
Single Malt — Ireland
Reviewed November 29, 2023 (edited January 10, 2024)Waterford Tasting, The Oak Barrel, Sydney, November 27th 2023, Whisky #3 Nose: Clean, crisp barley aromas with buttery weight. There is a slight fruity fragrance of pears and apples and the same bready, yeasty notes I get on all Waterford whiskies. As is typical for Waterford the cask influence is subtle and elegant to the point of being almost undetectable. Palate: The arrival is all about creamy barley flavours and these persist through the palate with just a hint of stone-fruits and orchard fruits appearing later. The texture is oily, unctious and satisfying. Like other Waterford whiskies there is a chalky, peppery quality, but it is very reserved and gentle. Finish: Medium/long. Creamy cereals, baked rolls. This single-farm expression was distilled in 2018 and bottled in 2023 as a special release for the distillery’s “Growers Gathering”, a celebration event held for their growers and suppliers. Maturation was in virgin American and French oak. Only 600 bottles were made and none was available for export. The tasting event I attended in Sydney on November 27th was hosted by Mark Reynier, the owner of Waterford, as part of an Australian visit so I assume a few bottles were shipped here specifically for the tastings, or were perhaps donated by local collectors. It’s a very good whisky that stands as a fine example of what Waterford is all about – purity, integrity of production and innovation. It was my second favourite dram of the evening, and I rated it one percentage point less than Knockroe Edition 1.1. I rated that one higher as I felt that it had just a fraction more complexity and interest from the wine cask contribution. “Very Good” : 87/100 (4.25 stars) -
Waterford Knockroe Edition 1.1
Single Malt — Ireland
Reviewed November 27, 2023 (edited January 10, 2024)Waterford Tasting, The Oak Barrel, Sydney, November 27th 2023, Whisky #2 Nose: A full-bodied but crisp and clean expression of barley. Fragrant, but not simply fruity nor floral – it’s a cereal fragrance with just a tiny hint of stone-fruit. There is also a bready note as of baking white bread rolls and a savory, umami quality like sliced mushrooms in butter sauce. There is no sign of overt cask influence. Palate: The arrival is beautifully textured, being creamy and velvety, and this smooth, oily richness persists right through to the aftertaste. I noted freshly milled cereal and fresh but very reserved stone fruits (nectarines and apricots). There is a chalky flavour like goat’s cheese and some white pepper but again these are restrained aspects and they act as spice for the cereal rather than being big flavours that stand out. The mouthfeel is simply scrumptious. Finish: Medium/long. Creamy oatmeal, fresh bread with butter and a hint of lemon. The finish is better described as “slow” rather than long. It has persistence, but not because of intensity, it is instead easy, smooth and languid. This single-farm expression was distilled in 2016 and bottled in 2020 as an exclusive release for the South African market. Somehow a few bottles made their way to Australia, I think through club releases, and one bottle was opened for the tasting. Maturation was in virgin American and French oak (as is the case for all Waterford whiskies) but also vin doux natural wine casks. It’s a lovely whisky with exquisite integration and it's the best Waterford I’ve tasted so far. For me it stood above all the others on the night due to its exceptionally fine texture and the restrained hint of sweetness that was no doubt due to the sweet wine casks. I found it very appealing and would have bought a bottle in a heartbeat, but sadly none were available. “Excellent” : 88/100 (4.5 stars)170.0 AUD per Bottle
Results 11-20 of 1119 Reviews