Tastes
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Casamigos Mezcal Joven
Mezcal Joven — Oaxaca , Mexico
Reviewed November 15, 2020 (edited April 22, 2021)Rating: 14/23 N: It smells like mezcal for sure, though a bit lighter and less complex than Los Vecinos Espadin. It does smell good though. I get some sourdough bread with a bit of olive brine, rosemary, something slightly rotton, a faint hint of mineral. Yeah, it's mostly sourdough bread though. P: There's more going on on the palate than I'd expected from the nose. It's smoky with a clean gasoline flavor rather than tasting like a tire fire, but that brunt of that quickly passes, letting in a whiff of vanilla and some subtle banana that balance nicely with the slightly spicy herbal flavor that makes me think somewhat of rosemary. I do get some of that sourdough flavor in here as well, with a hint of rosemary and light olive brine, which is nice. There's some tanginess that makes me think of pineapple and I also get this dusty, earthy quality to the spiciness. There's this flavor like chicken breast that was seasoned with a fair amount of salt and just a bit of pepper, then was barbecued until it was a bit dry and charred. Not my favorite mezcal palate, but quite a nice one. F: Smoke with a clean gasoline flavor, a little bit of spiciness from the rosemary, along with some of that dry earthiness, and a little bit of tropical fruity sweetness. that occasionally reminds me of vanilla. There's a waft of sourdough starter as well. This is a solid, representative mezcal. It nails the core of the typical mezcal profile with smoke, gasoline, herbs, meat, and some sweetness with a little fruit, but it doesn't go too far with it. The clarity of the fresh sourdough flavor is really the stand-out here. I also appreciate that it embraces its (relative) lightness; much like Patrón, Ancient Age, and Glen Grant, this makes no attempt to pretend that it is stronger than it is, avoiding clashing flavors and establishing a refreshing profile that tastes intentional. This would be a good mezcal to introduce a beginner to the genre and it's one I'd be happy to sip. This is less strong and aggressive than Los Vecinos Espadin is. Los Vecinos has a bit more complexity, but although this initially seems a bit one-note, the spices opening up on the palate is terrific. This pleasantly reminds me of Cabeza Blanco (which is practically impossible to find for some reason), with its spices, boldness (for a tequila), and tropical fruits. It isn't really a normal comparison, but I prefer Cabeza between the two because of its nice complexity and how it pushes the envelope for its category. Fans of Cabeza who have not yet tried mezcal would find this an easy transition. For the money, it's an OK value, though I think I'd go for Los Vecinos Espadin instead, especially given that it is also cheaper. You won't go too far wrong with this though. I'm thinking a 12 to 14, but it could be a 15. Most likely, a 13 or 14. Right now, I'm leaning toward a 14. Los Vecinos is probably 1 to 2 points better than this. I gave Los Vecinos a high 15, so some sort of 14 does make a lot of sense for this. I'm a bit surprised by this outcome though because I expected Los Vecinos to end up closer to Del Maguey Chichicapa (17). I guess that's just rounding for you. I enjoy this well enough. Actually, I enjoy it pretty well. For the money though, I have other mezcals that I prefer to this.60.0 USD per Bottle -
Jollité VSOP Armagnac
Armagnac — Armagnac, France
Reviewed November 15, 2020 (edited November 16, 2020)Rating: 7/23 I remember hating this because it was horribly tannic with a big formaldehyde presence. It was truly a miserable experience. I'm honestly not sure why I'm giving it another shot. OK, so actually, I was so confused by the last bottle I tried that I decided to get another one to give this another chance.DON'T MAKE MY MISTAKE. This is some of the worst swill I have ever encountered and it's marked at $40. N: Fruits ranging from mild and floral to dark and rich with some woody spices. Dark cherry, orange peel, raisin, star anise, clove, ginger, cinnamon. Oh yeah, but there's also this big meaty sulfur hit and something metallic. I like how rich the fruits are, but the sulfur goes beyond funky and rancio, well into poor distillate territory. P: Wow, this is nothing like the palate I recall! There must be some serious batch variation/quality control issues going on here. Yeah, there are plenty of tannins and there's some formaldehyde, but there's also a ton of sulfur and rancio! I'm honestly not sure which version is worse. The fruits are rich with a sweet dark, dried quality. There are some nice woody spices in here, suggesting a decent degree of age in barrels of reasonable quality. It's rich enough that the 40% ABV isn't a problem and it doesn't taste like a bunch of sugar was just tossed in either. The metallic flavor gradually comes out though. That alcohol is there too. Drinking it actually starts to give me a headache (which is a quality that I recall from last time) and it burns my mouth more than I'd normally expect for 40% ABV. If it weren't for the high amount of sulfur and that metallic flavor, I could get past the other problems and enjoy this well enough I think. F: There's more metal and sulfur on the finish. The rich fruits and nice spices drop out considerably, but the floral elements stick around. This is definitely the worst part of this Armagnac. I can appreciate some rancio on this finish, but that just is not what this is. This isn't a funky complexity: it's a serious flaw. So I think there is some serious batch variation going on here because this is nothing like what I had before. It does continue the tradition of being something that one could fairly characterize as poison though. Unlike my last bottle, which was incredibly tannic, this one is somewhat smoother, but it's obvious that it is incredibly young. There is a miserable amount of sulfur here and a big metallic taste, along with a gross artificial caramel flavor. It's disgusting. In desperation, I tried throwing a bunch of wood chips in - not because I thought it would make this Armagnac good, but because I thought it might clear up some of the sulfur - and giving it a few days. While that never produces a good product since it eats away the complexity and adds a flat flavor in its place, it does make a dramatic improvement here and since there is a lot going on to begin with, the outcome actually moves mostly in the right direction. The wood chips did help to remove a fair amount of the sulfur and some of the metal, but there was still enough left that I couldn't figure out what to do with all of this Armagnac. I tried blending with it in extremely small quantities (<1%, to simulate an Armagnac finish) and it did work OK for that, but it wasn't great by any means. At ~$10, the wood chipped version of this might be worth trying a bottle of. This goes for multiple times that though and requires you to toast and mix in a few bucks of wood chips yourself just to get something approaching drinkable. I'm terms of VFM, there is no question that this is a hard pass. Excluding the possibility of simply "OK" bottles costing hundreds of dollars, I'm fairly confident that this is the worst value for money I have ever encountered. I guess that's an impressive achievement. In terms of overall quality, this is down dangerously close to Piper's Clan and Clan MacGregor. Just plain bad. So what rating to I give this? It's actually kind of tough. In the right circumstance, the sulfur and metallic flavors aren't as noticeable, which is a great boon for this brandy. In other circumstances though, they are completely oppressive. There's also the burn and the formalehyde flavor. At its worst, I can see this as a 4 or maybe (just maybe) even a 3. At its best, I could justify a 9 - or perhaps a 10 if I were feeling extra generous. I'd put this below Ainsley Brae Burgundy and above Piper's Clan (I have to fall back to my bottom shelf scotch for comparison since I don't have anything else close in flavor profile). That puts this more in the 4-7 range. I think that 5-7 is the most plausible range at this point. I'm going with a 6 because I think that this is a bit closer in quality to Ainsley Brae (8) than it is to Piper's Clan (3) or Glen Logie (4). This is pretty competitive with Grant's (7) (a sad statement), but isn't quite as good. Grant's is more of a high 7/low 8, so I can see this being a 7. Still, I think by this point my palate has adjusted to the sulphur a bit. So, it might really be a 6, but the richness is nice, especially when compared with the excessive alcohol that Grant's has. I'm going with a 7. If my placement of this midway between Glen Logie and Ainsley Brae despite claiming that it's closer in quality to the latter says anything, it's that I overrated Glen Logie previously because right now Glen Logie and Piper's Clan taste pretty tied. Looking back, I recall starting with this at a 3 on my old bottle and then sort of gaslighting myself into thinking it was a 13. I do think that the 3 was too harsh, but the 13 was also far too generous. My current 6 to 7 rating strikes a nice balance, increasing my confidence in it. 40.0 USD per Bottle -
Highland Park 18 Year Viking Pride
Single Malt — Islands, Scotland
Reviewed November 15, 2020 (edited September 14, 2021)Rating: X/23 I noticed that I was about to hit 800 tastings on Distiller, so I figured I deserved to get to do an easy, reasonably tasty one. So, for this occasion, I pulled down my nearly-empty bottle of Highland Park 18 that has oxidized far too much .I deeply regret not moving the juice to a smaller bottle, but here we are. This isn't representative of the actual quality of Highland Park 18, so I won't be trying to analyze it too much and I won't be assigning a rating. The flavor is much flatter than it once was, but it still has a tasty richness. I enjoy the mild layer of smoke and peat. mixed with the rich, sweet fruitiness, sea spray, and aromatic spices (cinnamon, ginger, clove, and maybe a little allspice). The minerality in here is rich and goes very well with the sea spray. The fruit has a little bit of cherry with the apricot and tangerine flavors being more dominant. It's interesting hwo this dram combines the mustiness and complexity of an old scotch with the rich tartness of one aged for a shorter duration in a hot climate. Yet the rich malt balances the whole thing out. Very impressive, particularly given how greatly the oxygen reduced the complexity. This is actually much better than I'd expected it to be given how significantly the oxidation had impacted it the last time I tasted it. It isn't the 21 I gave it previously, but It's at least a 16. If I had to rate this based on what I'm tasting right now, I think I would probably give it an 18 (or maybe a 19). That's as far as I'll go with rating it though. In terms of value for the money, this is acceptable at $120 even in its current state, though it isn't an excellent buy in its oxidized form when there are cheaper options like Amrut Fusion - or Wild Turkey Rare Breed, if you're willing to take a bourbon instead. Really, if you're getting anything out of this tasting, it should be that some bottles (e.g. Springbank, Russell's Reserve, and Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Barrel Proof) improve substantially with time and oxygen, whereas others (e.g. this one) get worse. It's great to let bottles that benefit oxidize for a while, but you need to know which ones those are. Don't let this one oxidize. Do drink a good dram when you have something to celebrate.120.0 USD per Bottle -
Mellow Corn Bottled in Bond Whiskey
Corn — Kentucky, USA
Reviewed November 14, 2020 (edited November 15, 2020)Rating: 9/23 I've heard mixed things about this one. It's classified as just corn whiskey, rather than bourbon. Should be interesting. N: I'm getting a lot of alcohol and a little bit of sweetness. Minerals with some corn, perhaps? There's a hint of something peppery and also a faint waft of apples. I gradually get something a little earthy and vegetal with a bitter roundness from the alcohol. It's a pretty light nose and I'm not sure that I could have identified it as a corn-dominant whiskey based on the nose. Honestly, I might have thought it was a very light rye. The distinction between corn and apple is kind of difficult here. P: Surprisingly viscous. It's lightly flavored with a big alcohol burn, but there's actually a decent amount going on. I would say that the burn is actually harsh, not just hot though. That light corn/apple sweetness is up front. I get a decent amount of funky vegetal notes that remind me somewhat of Wild Turkey Rare Breed. With the heat and viscosity despite an odd lightness to the flavor, it makes me think of Booker's a bit. It has a lot of pepper and ethanol flavor, as well as kind of that Evan William's Bottled In Bond savory oiliness. There is a lot more pungeant flavor on the palate than I'd expected despite this being so light on the nose and the palate having an otherwise pretty light profile. The savory oiliness and burn are both bigger here and the viscosity is too. F: That alcohol lingers for ages and the burn stays for a while too. There's a kind of funky vegetal, herbal quality to it as the savory oiliness kind of fades away. I'm really surprised by this. I expected it to be way too sweet, but it's pretty much the opposite! It's less sweet than lots of other bourbon that I have. Although I gave Glen Logie a scathing review for being oily and harsh, I don't think that this is nearly that bad. That flavor was far more one-dimensional and the oiliness and burn just seemed more out of place. Sort of like Ancient Age, this just kind of works, in a weird way despite not really tasting like normal expressions in this category (though, admittedly, Mellow Corn doesn't quite fall into a normal category). To be clear though, Mellow Corn's palate is nothing like Ancient Age's aside from being a bit light; they're just both weird. Once adjusted to the harshness, I can appreciate the richness and viscosity. Mainly, I like those aspects and how they meld with the herbal, vegetal funk that reminds me a bit of Wild Turkey Rare Breed. In a rare side-by-side with a bourbon and a scotch, Glen Logie has this awful, one-note, chemical bitterness to its oiliness, whereas this has kind of a funky, balanced character. This is leagues better than Glen Logie, though expect as an acquired taste, I just can't say that it's better than Evan William's Bottled In Bond. That kind of bitter boldness reminds me of Booker's Shiny Barrel specifically. I like that element of this, but it's just not at all on the same level. It's in the 7-11 range for sure and I'm really contemplating 9 to 10. I have very little doubt that Ezra Brooks (which I gave an 11) is better than this, so I find it hard to imagine going higher than a 10. Considering the harshness and kind of weird flavor, I think a 9 is most appropriate. This is well worth trying though! And it sure is a lot better than many of those store brand offerings. What gives me pause here is that I thought this was supposed to be sweet. I know that it isn't my palate because I tried this side by side with 5 other bourbons (I'm committed to tastings) and only the Booker's Shiny Barrel was not obviously sweeter. Even the Wild Turkey Rare Breed 116 had a sweet, cherry flavor in comparison! In one last quick side by side, Early Times is sweeter and smoother. It's less funky, but I think it's flavor is similarly good. Mellow Corn might taste a hair better, but I'm not sure about that. The kicker is that Mellow Corn is a lot harsher, unfortunately. For that reason, I need to place Early Times above this and go with a 9 for Mellow Corn. I get a kind of vegetal flavor like corn husk or perhaps some sort of non-sweet corn served cooked (maybe a dry cornmeal?), but that and that brief light flavor that's a bit like apple is as close to corn as I ever get and I might not have said that this tastes at all like corn (though I might have compared it to bourbon) had I not been actively looking those flavors. Honestly, looking through what people have said about this, I think that their descriptions of sweet corn, creamed corn, and so on align much more closely with Ancient Age. I'm still giving this a 9, but I'm kind of confused.15.0 USD per Bottle -
Rating: 9/23 This is another one of those Bailey's knock-offs. There's nothing magnificent about Bailey's though, so I'm somewhat optimistic. Color-wise, this is pretty much identical to Bailey's. N: Whereas Bailey's has this milky, grassy scent, this smells creamy, with Werther's Originals butterscotch mixed with a dash of banana. There's a vodka scent coming through here, or perhaps some really cheap scotch that is mostly just oily like Glen Logie. P: The palate is fairly rich but it's overly sweet and pretty our of whack. The oily vodka (Glen Logie) flavor brings out more banana from the Werther's Originals. The Werther's flavor (sans banana) is OK, but the only clearly good flavor is the cream. The alcohol has a graininess that brings in a tiny bit of spice. It's kind of interesting, but it isn't very good. F: There's something weirdly musty on the finish. There's more to it than that. I guess it's a bit like dried grass too. Maybe the grain from the alcohol is finally blending in with the other flavors OK and the alcohol bite is gone. It reminds me a bit of oxidized dry milk powder, perhaps. Like the palate, it's kind of interesting, but it isn't good. In this case, the knock-off is far from the quality of the original, unfortunately. Looking more closely, I see that this is made from Irish Whiskey AND other spirits. So, I think I was correct in identifying the vodka flavor to begin with. I was considering the 7 to 10 range for this, but was leaning more toward a 9 or 10. It's tough to judge something like this since I don't have much that is like it sitting around to use for a comparison. I think I'm going to go with a 9. At $9 per bottle, I guess you could do worse.9.0 USD per Bottle
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Bodegas Martinez Lacuesta Vermut Lacuesta Rojo
Vermouth — Spain
Reviewed November 11, 2020 (edited November 14, 2020)Rating: 14/23 N: Richer and less astringent and sugary than Noilly Prat Rouge. It's fuller with less minerality as well and more of a savoriness, a little bit like sharp cheddar. Not terribly complex, but decently enticing. P: Richer, oilier, and more bitter than Noilly Prat Rouge. Less sweet, watery, and ... metallic? This is a little more like an amaro, though it is clearly a sweet vermouth. Pomegranate and red grape skins come through here. It isn't terribly complex and it might be a tad bitter but it's well balanced. I get just a hint of that sharp cheddar funk coming through too, though not much. A hint soapy as well. F: Bitter with that classic sweet vermouth medicinal red fruit flavor remaining. A solid finish. I'm not quite sure that this is an improvement over Noilly Prat Rouge and I'm highly skeptical that it is a better value for the money given that is costs more than twice is much. Tragically, I don't have enough to also try it in a cocktail because all I had was a single sample. Therefore, I'm rating it based on its flavor neat and my best conservative guess as to how it would do in a cocktail. I suspect that this would hold up a bit better, sort of like upgrading from Ezra Brooks to Wild Turkey 101 to add more fullness. Still, that's pretty speculative. I think I need to go with a 14 here. I could imagine it being as high as a 15 or as low as an 11, but I'm going with 14. If I had to go strictly with the neat flavor, I'd probably lean toward 13.20.0 USD per Bottle -
Scallywag Blended Malt
Blended Malt — Speyside, Scotland
Reviewed November 10, 2020 (edited April 29, 2021)Tasting: 13/23 We'll have to see how this goes. I enjoyed Rock Oyster, but The Epicurean sadly didn't do it for me. N: I get some nice sherry sweetness on the nose. There's fig and some lightly, slightly oily caramel with a faint hint of buckwheat produced by the kind of youthful maltiness. This is somewhere between a young (10 to 12 year) Aberlour and a young Glenfarclas, which is a nice place to be, honestly. There's some of that Glenfarclas vegetal funk but it's also somewhat mellower like Aberlour, though it lacks the characteristic floral side of the fruitiness. There's a bit of bite from the alcohol and this is clearly quite young, but it isn't bad. P: This is harsher than Aberlour 12 is, but it's also richer with some more personality and the harshness could be explained by the higher ABV. I get that fig and caramel with the.dash of buckwheat. There's more of an orange flavor to the sherry here, though it loses that sort of rose enhancement that brings out the red fruit in Aberlour 12. A bit of that vegetal flavor makes it through, which helps with the richness and gives this a bit more personality than Aberlour. The youthful alcohol is quite noticeable, but not entirely bad. F: The light fruitiness and some alcohol remain. There's a bit more alcohol bitterness as well. It's largely a more muddled version of the palate with more alcohol. It's not a very exciting finish. First impression: this is a surprisingly successful dram! It's a real stand-out from Speyside in the budget price range. The flavor is decently complex despite it being a blend, yet it doesn't taste overly young. This has more smoke and funk to it than Aberlour 12 does, but it isn't funky to the extent that younger Glenfarclas tends to be. It's pretty complex and balanced. It might not taste all that old, but it does taste well executed. Aberlour 12 does have more sweet fruitiness though. This emphasizes dark dried fruits (e.g. prunes) less than Glenfarclas 105 does, having more of a young tawny character. At times, I think I prefer the clean execution of Aberlour 12, but this is always quite close in quality. Really, I think that it's a very situational call. I can imagine this being as low as a 12, but really I see it at more of a 13. With Aberlour 12 at a 13, I think that a 13 is most appropriate for this. I can definitely imagine a 14 for both this and Aberlour 12 in the future, but I don't see how either would reach a 15. At $30-35, this would be easy to recommend. At $55, it's a tougher sell. I don't think I'd buy a bottle at that price.55.0 USD per Bottle -
Novo Fogo Barrel-Aged Cachaça
Cachaça — Paraná, Brazil
Reviewed November 10, 2020 (edited November 11, 2020)Rating: 13/23 I've never had Cachaça before and I'm interested to try it. E: It's a very light straw color. Really, it's a tad duller, possibly grayer. I suspect it hasn't been aged terribly long (which is probably a good thing to maintain its natural character). N: It has this kind of light funkiness that immediately reminds me a bit of an añejo tequila. Exploring it some more, it becomes obvious that it really smells like rhum agricole. I mean, of course. I get a bit of straw and some quite green banana. I smell a hint of sort of a chalky, grainy flavor that reminds me a little of oats, and there's some light brown sugar to go with it. Perhaps a dash of baking spices (allspice and cinnamon) too. There's a dash of a firework smokiness blending nicely with the hogo. It's a fairly light nose though. There are lots of tropical fruits coming out. Banana, orange, maybe a dash of lime. If I'm not imagining things, there is a faint hint of vanilla merging into the faintest hint of spearmint. It's sort of like a less aggressively edgy Plantation Xaymaca nose - complex and edgy. P: It's light. It definitely makes me think of a lightly aged rhum agricole. I get that creamy oat graininess a bit, mixed with a lot of vegetal flavor that is typical of rhum agricole, though the squash element is less pronounced here. There's a lot of green banana in this and it's mixed with a bit of vanilla. I really don't get any of the fireworks that I thought I got a hint of on the nose, but I do get some hogo and kind of a bitterness. There is a bit of an alcohol bite to this too. There's plenty of fruit, though less than I was expecting (aside from the green banana) and it's a bit harder than I expected to pick out the individual ones. I do get the green banana, and also some citrus. Maybe pineapple? The baking spices make it through here too, with some clove added to the allspice and cinnamon. I'm not sure that I actually get any brown sugar on the palate though. Maybe just a tad There's something a little bit nutty here too that plays with the green banana a bit. F: The kind of standard rhum agricole vegetal flavor and the sort of oatiness persist for a bit, with a faint layer of fruit gradually rising up a bit from underneath. That green banana lingers as well, but it isn't as good now. I do get a tad more brown sugar now. On the finish, it's largely light fruit with coasting of mild funk that makes me think a little bit of sweet potato with a bit of baking spices (allspice, cinnamon, clove) I've never been much of a fan of rhum agricole and I can't say I'm really a fan of this either. It's been a fun experience to try though and I'm glad to have a better understanding of what cachaça is. The flavors are all a bit mellower than I thought they'd be. I think that the barrel is responsible to a fair extent, though that isn't all bad because it also tamed the alcohol a bit. The barrel doesn't really add much character here, but the flip side of that is that it lets the natural rum flavor shine through. To start trying to identify a rating, I don't see this being less than a 10 (more likely an 11), but I also don't see it being greater than a 14. I had to do a cross-category comparison to come up with this range. I found this to be no worse than Sir Edward's 12, but no better than Plantation Xaymaca. Both of those did have more of an alcohol bite, which put the bite I thought I was getting from this in perspective. I do wish that this had been watered down less though because its flavor is a bit too mellow. Some more vibrancy would be nice. Realistically, I think this is going to land in the 12 to 13 range. I kind of want to rate it higher, but I really like Plantation Xaymaca's explosion of flavor better and that caps the rating. I think this means that I need to go with a 13. It's a low 13, but a 13 nonetheless.37.0 USD per Bottle -
Aberlour 12 Year Double Cask Matured
Single Malt — Highlands, Scotland
Reviewed November 10, 2020 (edited April 29, 2021)Rating: 13/23 N : Unlike most scotch, there's really no sulphur on the nose. It's mild and sweet with some strong floral presence and some sweet (but tamed) red fruit like strawberry and cherry. There's brown sugar and a bit of oak from the American oak barrel (who are we kidding? it's obviously bourbon). There's a bit of slightly bitter alcohol, but it doesn't intrude too much. P: Oh, right, I'm supposed to taste it too. That nose is just so nicely perfumed though. The palate is light, delicate, smooth. I get a little bit of alcohol, but it's minimal. I get some prickly spice from the barrel along with it and a faint hint of that brown sugar from the nose, but not much. The barrels were clearly tired. There's quite a bit of a river water minerality to it that fits nicely with the floral sweetness. Sort of elderflower, rose, dried strawberry, dried cherry, and maybe a touch of raspberry and the faintest waft of pomegranate. The sherry flavors are light, so some of their more floral flavors come out. I think that the vanilla from the American oak is bringing out the floral character too. Not what I'd normally go for in scotch, honestly, but good in its own right. It kind of works with the low proof, but I'd like to try it at a higher proof and older age. It was probably a good call leaving the excess heads and tails out of this, but I hope there are more in the older age statements. F: A little more bitterness comes out here as the sweetness from the flowers and fruit fades a bit. It's similar to the effect encountered when tea is over-steeped, but is less pronounced in this case. I'd prefer for the sherry to be the dominant flavor here rather than the bourbon, but it's a decent enough finish. Surprisingly, this has grown on me to the extent that I now understand why people like it. It's quite enjoyable and makes for a great scotch from the early spring to the late summer. Maybe it's because I realized how much I like St. Germain. It still has a delicate flavor that strikes me as fairly immature, but it also has a mellow sweetness that reminds me of Irish whiskey like Green Spot with a bit more of that Yellow Spot maturity. For the money, I don't think I can call this a winner, except maybe if it's on sale. Still, it's nice and I've enjoyed having it. I'm thinking of upping my 12 to a 13 to 14. 14 seems a bit too generous though considering the lightness and alcohol (though there have been moments when I seriously considered it), so 13 seems the most appropriate.40.0 USD per Bottle -
Rating: 12/23 Whoa, that's a tall cap! I thought it was two separate pieces. You know, from a distance, this looks like a classy liqueur, but up close it really doesn't look like anything to write home about. Then again, Cointreau looks pretty unimpressive and so does Chartreuse, so I won't be judging it based on that. I hear that this is good and the go-to raspberry liqueur, but I'm not sure what good as a raspberry liqueur means. It's difficult because for non-liqueur-spirits, I often find the "as a mixer" ones to be a level above "don't drink this" (to be fair and in my defense, being not-quite-sippable and being a cheap drink that works well for mixing are NOT the same thing - mixing usually requires punchy flavors that are well executed and add interesting character, so I am not saying that mixers and cheap spirits are the same thing). Liqueurs are not my forte though. The big problem though is that I have no idea what most people do with raspberry liqueur. What I'm getting at here is that I first bought a raspberry liqueur so that I could make some raspberry buttercream chocolates as a Christmas present for my mom. If you're envisioning this scene with a mix of blurry, over-saturated pastel colors and sparkles without bubbles, you've nailed it. So, I really don't think of this as something that one would sit down and drink, particularly since I usually think of baking/confectionary liquor as cheap (seriously, if you see a recipe asking liquor in cups, how much are you prepared to drop on it?). This kind of lands me in this conundrum (a conundrum now being something that one "lands" in) of trying to rate something that is meant for mixing things I don't know and maybe baking/confections when I'm most accustomed to rating liquors that are meant for sipping slowly and savoring. Maybe this makes a kick-ass cocktail X? Maybe it isn't the right choice for cocktail Y? What does that mean. I was baffled the first time I saw a recipe that said 'this sauce is bad on its own, but it's good with the pork'. Does that mean I give this full marks for being awesome in X or do I give it a middling score for being acceptable in Y? With most drams, I just go with the premise that it's being sipped on a clean but experienced palate. With liqueurs and some spirits that are especially effective mixers, I try to take them in their better of their sipping and mixing identities. But, here, I don't even understand the mixing identity! N: The only other framboise I have on my shelf at this time is Chateau Monet, which a neighbor gave me when she moved out because she couldn't afford to pay the bills for her cancer medication anymore. In all seriousness, that got depressing fast, but I feel like she deserves to be remembered a bit, whether or not she made it through that relapse. So, Chareau Monet is a no-name liqueur that I had trouble finding a price for until recently. It's also bottled at a lower ABV. In comparison, the nose...wait, am I just starting to talk about the nose? Let me do the review equivalent of breaking the fourth wall and start the nose section over again. N: Chateau Monet has a much sweeter nose that suggests raspberry and strawberry gummy candies. Actually, Welch's strawberry fruit snacks. In contrast, Chambord is more bitter and rich. The difference is actually shocking. I get a lot more of that raspberry seed smell that borders on pomegranate. I'm not actually sure whether that's a good thing or whether I'm just so accustomed to it from drinking red wine that I say "oh, yeah, this" and accept it as natural. There's also a malted note with a little bit of chocolate in it. Somehow, even on multiple independent sniffs, this reminds me every time of those egg-shaped malted milk balls that are available around Easter and not of regular old Whoppers all that much. This is a more complex nose and I must say that I like it more. P: This is not what I expected. It's thinner than expected and the malted Easter egg candies come out much more, including a substantial amount of milk chocolate. The raspberry flavor is there, with its seed's oiliness being the largest component, but it falls to the back a bit. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure how much it actually tastes like raspberry and I did just mark down some coffee liqueurs for tasting like chocolate rather than coffee. Malted milk and chocolate instead of raspberry seems far less reasonable. Some mushrooms gradually come out. F: Sweet, some icing sugar, a bit of malted milk remnants with just that thin coating of chocolate after you've gnawed or sucked the rest off. The faintest suggestion of raspberry, led by oily seed and accompanied by a vague floral hint of apricot. Somehow, the finish gets sweeter. Wafts of mushroom occasionally remain. This is an OK finish, but I'm not a fan. I'm actually really disappointed in Chambord. I expected great things, but this aging bottle of Chateau Monet tastes more like raspberry to me. In a final quick SBS tasting, this is sweeter yet thinner. It has a longer-lasting bitterness, but the maltiness really carries through. Chateau Monet shouts "fruit!", whereas this kind of dithers. I would absolutely pull this out at Christmas, but otherwise I would probably prefer Chateau Monet, honestly. As I strongly suggested earlier, there may be some bias here, but I honestly don't know which way it goes. Sure, I'd like to think that my former neighbor is OK, but she never struck me as someone with a refined palate, and Chateau Monet's bottle seems like it's trying to rip off Chambord, Crown Royal, and maybe Godiva all at once. Still, these two are the same proof and Chateau Monet is cheaper, so next time I run low on (non-baking/confection) framboise, I'll probably check for a bottle of Chateau Monet. Frankly though, neither is a very good liqueur. A dash here or there, sure, but if I want a real flavoring, I'll reach for something with more personality like Chartreuse Green or Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao instead. I have tried a few of cocktails using this, but none of them impressed me. After that, I felt like I was getting into "X cocktail but with Chambord!" territory, so I stopped looking. There was only one that was more than maybe slightly better than Chambord alone (see next paragraph). Aside from literally mixing with chocolate (and I did try this with chocolate liqueur), I didn't find any cocktail that I felt was a compelling use for raspberry-blackberry-plus-malted-milk-ball liqueur. Now, in Chambord's defense, mixing it with imitation chocolate liqueur was better than either of them was alone. It wasn't anything amazing, but it seemed decent for dessert. Do I really see this being a common drink that I or anybody else would want to have though? No, not really. It's kind of fun, but it gets tiresome easily. I did also compare the chocolate-framboise cocktail with a version with Chateau Monet. I found that it took a lot less chocolate liqueur to create a balanced flavor with Chambord than with Chateau Monet. Chambord produced a more subdued, but somewhat more complex drink with flavors of chocolate, malt, raspberry, and blackberry. Essentially, the chocolate liqueur explained away the weird malted milk ball flavor inherently in Chambord. On a total tangent, I read recently that the Bailey's prototype included some sort of sort of Swiss-Miss-style malted milk chocolate or something. Having tasted this, I'm glad that I can't taste that in modern Bailey's. Back to the topic at hand, Chateau Monet had a more clear raspberry flavor in the cocktail, but it also had more aggressive sweetness, including confectioner's sugar. If I were looking for a real chocolate-raspberry experience, I would still definitely choose Chateau Monet, assuming I could put up with the confectioner's sugar (in that regard, Chateau Monet is unfortunately in a similar conundrum to Kahlua). The thing is that at best here, I only mildly prefer the Chambord version. And, in general, Chambord is weird and without purpose. Adding vodka, the Chambord cocktail shows more of the true Chambord character. The thing is that I can see how somebody would like this cocktail when told that it's raspberry plus chocolate (assuming that they could put the blackberry and malt aside) because it's pretty well balanced and so one. I know how the sausage is made though, so I can't appreciate it in that way. The Chateau Monet cocktail with vodka, on the other hand, really needs a fair amount of vodka to bring the sweetness and viscosity down. The vodka really does end up showing and while it does truly taste more like a chocolate raspberry cocktail (and the confectioner's sugar is even reduced), I can see how its more aggressive flavors would put some people off. I'd call it pretty much a toss-up between the two if I didn't know what was going on in the Chambord one, but I would lean in favor of the Chambord one if I didn't know that because of the total lack of confectioner's sugar. I think even knowing that, I do slightly prefer the Chambord cocktail, but the cocktail itself is at best a 14. It kind of gives me this camping food vibe of jelly sandwiches and s'mores. Weird. I did give the cocktail a try with real chocolate liqueur, but I was unsurprised when the the resulting texture was gorilla snot. It did taste pretty good though! Not enough to make me want to drink gorilla snot, however. So the high bar for anything I was able to do with Chambord is a 14. It isn't actively offensive and it's kind of amusing, so I can't see it being below a 10. I might give its one successful cocktail a high 13. So the liqueur itself is at best a 12. I will give it a gentleman's C of 12 and kindly ask that it not darken my doorstep again. Adieu. (Note: most of my bottle is still full, so unless I can pawn this off, it will most certainly continue to darken my doorstep)25.0 USD per Bottle
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