Tastes
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Springbank 10 Year
Single Malt — Campbeltown, Scotland
Reviewed June 16, 2020 (edited February 14, 2022)A follow up from my first taste of this glorious nectar just 9 days ago. This is the first pour from a fresh bottle. Tasted neat in a glencairn. The pour is a very pale apple juice color. There is some sheeting on a swirl with small, slow tears. The nose is floral and peaty at the same time. Cloves and vanilla, honey and fresh lumber, peat smoke and brine all come through. This has great mouthfeel. It's sweet, rich, and svelte. I'm tasting great floral bouquets and delicate seaside elements over a honeyed drizzle that's topped with just the right amount of pepper. Springbank is a great counterpoint to Ardbeg Uigeadail, tame and refined where the Oogie is bold and forward. As complex as Lagavulin 16, this is a full step softer. This might be the best value in peated scotch whiskey on the planet. Buy this before the price goes up.64.0 USD per Bottle -
Springbank 10 Year
Single Malt — Campbeltown, Scotland
Reviewed June 7, 2020 (edited August 17, 2020)I am sitting at a barbecue restaurant with my lovely wife of four decades. I am drinking this very very good scotch. For the sake of my marriage this review will be brief. A bottle of this will be on my bar next week. -
Compass Box Great King St Artist's Blend
Blended — Scotland
Reviewed June 7, 2020 (edited September 18, 2020)Honey sweet & just very slightly smoky. Enjoyed neat from a glencairn at a restaurant. This is our first time sitting at a bar in 3 months. For the sake of my marriage I'll keep this short, if I could find a bottle and it was priced at MSRP I would buy it without hesitation. -
Appleton Estate 21 Year Limited Edition
Aged Rum — Jamaica
Reviewed May 23, 2020 (edited April 16, 2022)Enjoying a dram from a bottle I purchased in Jamaica circa 1996. It was just over half full when I poured this taste into the glencairn. Yes, you might say I have nursed this bottle. The pour is a polished walnut in color. The nose is maple syrup, vanilla, a bit of molasses, dark cacao. A swirl shows thick sheeting and slow heavy tears. The complexity of this rum is breathtaking. It is sweet and syrupy and approachable and delicious. There are notes of English butter toffee, maple syrup, figs, barrel wood, and vanilla. It's simply lovely. This is a perfect dram. I have no idea what a 21-year-old Appleton Estate tastes like circa 2020, but this one from the past is utterly spectacular. I am going to have to buy a new bottle to prepare myself for the inevitable day when this bottle will give up its final drop. I can only hope the new product is as good. I can't imagine how it would be better. -
Evan Williams is one of my core selections. I think it's just a great bourbon and EWBiB is a spectacularly good deal. But the Single Barrel has been in my rotation for years and the BiB is more or less an impulse buy. Why? EWSB has just proven itself to be a dependable, tasty bottle that's always got that 'single barrel' gamble coming along for the ride. Sometimes its spectacular, other times its mearly good. This bottle is one of the good ones. Running with the pack, so to say. Tasted neat from a glencairn. The pour is copper with notable sheeting and thick tears. The nose is sweet and inviting with notes of caramel, rye, leather and sweet corn. I love the way this bourbon has a technicolor profile. Werther's Original gives way to traces of sasprilla, oaky barrel wood, slight char and a creamy syrup note. This is a fun dram as it has a bit going on, but not so much that its overwhelming. At 86.6 proof, EWSB is emminently approachable and is one of the few my wife will sip at neat. It goes down easy. Its sweet and above all, balanced. The finish is short but clean. There's very little heat, as one might guess from the proof. Heaven Hill really has the whole EW family dialed in, and this is the pinnacle of the line. It's a full step in front of the competition plus a quarter point for value.31.99 USD per Bottle
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Horse Soldier Premium Straight Bourbon
Bourbon — Ohio, USA
Reviewed May 18, 2020 (edited November 17, 2020)I ended up with a bottle of Horse Soldier straight bourbon because a dear friend wanted a bottle of Blanton's for a family event. I had a couple in the liquor closet, so I offered one in trade for "any bourbon that has a maximum price of $60" because that's what I'd paid. I've got a pretty adventurous palate (finally got the spelling of this right), so what I got in return was less important than having fun tasting something new. Horse Soldier has a pretty interesting story, is distilled in Columbus OH and is bottled in Florida. As an Ohioan turned Floridian, it seemed right. I drink the whiskey and not the hype or the story, so here we go. Tasted neat from a glencairn and given a solid 10 minutes rest. This is the last pour from the bottle. The color is a bright tannin tea with orange highlights. A swirl shows thin sheeting and fast legs. The nose is carmelized sugar, cherry cough drops, vanilla and a note of acetone. No matter how many times I come to this bottle - even after being open for more than 4 months - this has an unappetizing nose. On the palate this whiskey isn't redeemed, but it's a bit better than its first impression. Its comes out sweet with a notable oaky, barrel note. Cornflakes with light brown sugar, slight cherry, and black pepper. It starts creamy and quickly moves to thin, leaving a lingering peppery fade on the lips and in the chest. It's not bad. Which brings me to the $60 price. Thats 25% more than Wild Turkey Rare Breed and this isn't in that class of quality. It's 25% more than Knob Creek single barrel and this isn't in that class of quality. It's 40% more than Old Grand Dad 114, and it's not as good. It's thrice the price of Evan Williams bottled in Bond, and I'd rather have the three. I rate based on a 2.5 being the exact middle of the bell curve. A competent, but nothing special, whiskey should score a 2.5 and most will land between 2.0 and 3.0, as does this bottle of Horse Soldier straight bourbon whiskey. At this price it should be better. At least it came with a cool story.59.0 USD per Bottle -
Blanton's Original Single Barrel
Bourbon — Kentucky, USA
Reviewed May 17, 2020 (edited June 7, 2020)A quick impression here. I've had this many times and it's my fav BT expression. The taste profile is rich & viscous, near oily. It's not a sweet whiskey, but there are sweet elements. This has a nicely complex profile with vanilla, caramel, dark cacao, hazelnut, and a slightly citrus finish. Nice barrel presence. There's a nice warmth and a pepper note that has a slow fade. The better part of this bourbon is the finish. This is a fine $50 - $60 whiskey. At $65 I likely won't buy again. IMHO it's not really competitive at $75+. Drink the whiskey, not the hype.65.0 USD per Bottle -
Yet another stop along my way of tasting inexpensive blends. I really like Monkey Shoulder for cocktails, but wondered if there was something else that might be better. So I got together a list of relatively inexpensive scotch - all blends - to taste my way through. For the record, this experiment bounds the upper end at the price of the MS. So far I've had Dewar's White Label (I'm a long time drinker), Johnnie Walker Red (just say "no"), Johnnie Walker Black (made me stop drinking Dewar's White Label), and Famous Grouse (same league as JW Red, so same answer). I've had others (J&B, Teachers, Haig & Haig, and probably a dozen more), but not in anything like a recent period of time where I might feel comfortable providing a comparison. Since I like bolder flavors and a bit of smoke, this JW might be a good fit for me. Let's see... Fresh bottle, first pour into a glencairn neat. Allowed to sit for about 5 minutes to rest. Kind of an orange-brass pour. Some sheeting on a swirl, minor slow tears. The nose is bactine anseptic, alcohol, iodine, some peat, a bit of vanilla, a trace of plums. It smells like a slightly amped up JWBL. This is nicely tame, slightly peaty and smoky, sweet with honey and vanilla on first taste. Nothing too complex. But if I wanted to know what the essence of a smoky, peaty scotch is like without heading to single malts, this is a great outline. There's a bit of length to the finish. There's a tinge of sour or bitter on the back end (could be me at this moment) but otherwise this is a pretty predictable whisky. If you don't like this, you likely don't like any Islay scotch. This is solid. This is a good candidate for a Rob Roy (I want a bigger trace of smoke than MS provides in that cocktail) or a Blood & Sand, I think. I like it. My ratings put a good, mass market nothing special whisky at 2.5 - right at the peak of the bell curve. Any quality offering is most likely to place between 2.0 and 3.0. Above 3.0 we get into what I consider a better class of liquor. Above 4.0 lies the range of true all-stars. This is a dram that doesn't make it that far, but I think it's fair to say its a little above average. I like it, but I don't like it too much more than I like the regular JWB. Bottom line, I don't like this over regular Black enough to pay a premium. This is a push, taste is maybe a *little* more rich, definitely a bit more sweet, but the price is *noticeably* higher by 20%. I won't buy another, but I'm satisfied with the bottle I got. If given the option this might be a good choice to sample at your local drinkery. YMMV.32.99 USD per Bottle
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I've had a lot of this over the years, almost always in a cocktail. In fact, I don't ever recall seriously drinking this neat or on the rocks. Maybe I tasted it, but it was always an ingredient for me and never a main course. Today we'll turn that around. Originally called Curaçao Blanco Triple Sec, Cointreau is an orange-flavoured triple sec liqueur produced in Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou, France. It's a digestif, often enjoyed after a meal. Cointreau is made from blended sweet and bitter orange peels and alcohol from sugar beets. Introduced in 1875, about 13 million bottles of this liqueur sell each year. Cointreau is clear. I tasted neat from a glencairn. My bottle is almost empty, so this is as oxidized as it will get. It's clear and a bit thin with small tears quickly running down the glass after a swirl. Cointreau has a very delicate, but sharp, orange aroma. It smells to me like a blood orange before it's cut open - just smelling it up close to the rind. There's more than a trace of that beet alcohol, too. It's not a complex nose, but its nice enough. On the tongue this is very sweet, slightly citrus, blood-orange flavored and mildly warming. It's refined, simple and tasty. In short, this is a superb ingredient. I use it whenever I want orange in a cocktail and I use this as my triple sec. I should note that I'm not a fan of regular Grand Marnier (althought I'll argue that Grand Marnier Cuvee Speciale Cent Cinquantenaire 150 is a comletely different animal and I love it), so Cointrea remains a strong player in my liquor cabinet. Love it in cocktails, not my jam on its own, definitely a quality product. Recommended!25.0 USD per Bottle
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Macallan Double Cask 12 Year
Single Malt — Highland, Scotland
Reviewed April 28, 2020 (edited July 16, 2020)Revisiting this one. I had it for the first time at a Macallan tasting and wasn't overly impressed. But its not fair to the whisky to let a first impression be an only impression when the pedigree is this refined. Time to slow down and pay attention. This expression has a story. I remember hearing this at the tasting, but it didn't really register at the time. This is from ScotchNoob.com review of this Macallan "This is something new, folks. Macallan takes new American oak (NOT ex-bourbon!) and “seasons” it by filling it with sherry for an undisclosed period of time. These “seasoned” American oak sherry casks are then used to age Macallan for at least 12 years. This whisky is then blended with traditional Macallan aged in European oak sherry casks and bottled at 43% ABV for the American market." I enjoyed this taste is neat from a small snifter glass. The bottle is a few months old and about 2/3rds full, so it's had opportunity for some meaningful oxidation. I gave the pour about 10 minutes to rest. The color is brassy and a swirl shows some sheeting and a number of small tears running down the side of the glass. On the nose I get immediate notes of sweet sherry with notes of vanilla and a hint of candy orange slices. Barrel wood is in the mix, and my wife picked out a note she said reminded her of an upscale butcher shop - meaty. I didn't quite get there, but definitely get something that reminds me of fresh chesnuts. This has an interesting nose, its not so fascinating first whiff, but as you pay attention to subtle elements you find complexity. On the palette this is soft, sweet, sherried, polite and reserved. There's a short delay between the swallow and the blush of pepper that remains. There's nothing technicolor about this. Nothing brash, nothing flashy. It's lovely... but I don't love it. This is a very good, very polite dram. So polite its boring. Watery even. I can't imagine this on ice. I should try a drop of water to see how it changes the drink, but this isn't something I'd want to mix or use in a cocktail. Its a very refined, very approachable, sweet scotch whisky that is best enjoyed on its own terms - neat and casual.59.99 USD per Bottle
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