Tastes

Nose - mint, black cherry, plum, baked apple, marshmallow, cereal grain, dark chocolate, walnut, anise, nutmeg, toasted oak, black pepper, coffee, toffee, vanilla, moderate ethanol burn. Taste - caramel, plum, cherry, apple, vanilla, nutmeg, allspice, spearmint, ginger, black pepper, hazelnut, rocky minerality, sour oak, lemon pith, mild to moderate alcohol bite, finishing medium short with caramel, plum, baking spice, and sour oak flavors. Something got me thinking about Metallica today, and my mind immediately went to this whiskey. If nothing else, the branding for this one is on point. The nose is grainy, or maybe it’s more of a mineral quality I’m detecting. There’s a hefty amount of dark fruit and confectioneries with a touch of rye spice in the background. The palate is similarly grainy and dark, but there’s some spearmint, bitter citrus, nuttiness, and sour oak to be found as well. So honestly I was expecting more from this one. It’s better than average and there are the foundations of some nice aromas and flavors, but it screams youth and imbalance. Unfortunately, everything nice quickly turns bitter, sour, and grainy. Maybe they just played the wrong combination of Metallica songs when aging this batch. More likely, they just didn’t play them long enough. Many thanks to @ContemplativeFox for providing the sample!

Nose - light peat, toffee, vanilla cream, lemon, nutmeg, pineapple, cereal grain, hay, tobacco, overripe banana, mango, milk chocolate, green apple, mild to moderate ethanol burn. Taste - salted caramel, vanilla, sweet floral notes, black pepper, cereal grain, lemon, mint, banana, cocoa, nutmeg, ginger, pineapple skin, tobacco, leather, moderate alcohol bite, finishing medium length with caramel, spoiled vanilla cream, and tropical fruit flavors. Next up on my list of one-off reviews is this Glen Scotia travel retail offering. I’ve tried the classic 15 Year in the past, and I’m guessing this isn’t so different. The nose carries that sweet and slightly rotten Campbeltown aroma. There’s also a decent dose of lemon, nutmeg, creamy milk chocolate, and interestingly some rummy banana and pineapple notes. The palate arrives mildly peaty and salty with a lemony zing, more tropical notes, and a nice floral quality. The finish is middling with a slight drift toward sour and bitter territory. Overall this is good, probably better than the 15 Year, but not enough for me to rate it differently. It still tastes a bit youthful with its lingering grainy character and sour posture. I’d love to taste a more mature Glen Scotia offering that sheds some of these flaws. But until then, Springbank reigns supreme in the region for me. A big thank you to @Richard-ModernDrinking for providing the generous sample!

Nose - toffee, vanilla cream, brown sugar, peanut butter, marshmallow, black pepper, chocolate cake, cinnamon bun, tobacco, black cherry, plum, raisin bread, rich oak, mild to moderate ethanol burn. Taste - dark chocolate, brown sugar, hazelnut, peanut butter, caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, leather, sour oak, tobacco, bitter herbal notes, moderate alcohol bite, finishing medium length with caramel, dark chocolate, and sour oak flavors. For the next couple days, I’ll be digging through my Santa-sized sack of samples and pulling out some one-offs that I’ve been wanting to try for a long time, but don’t fit cleanly into a review series. This was high on the list. An 11 year old brown rice bourbon. The only other brown rice whiskey I’ve tasted is the Little Book Chapter 4, and I really enjoyed that one. I’m thinking this won’t be as good, but let’s find out. The nose is dark and sweet. There’s dark chocolate and fruit, marshmallow, and a really nice yeasty, cakey aroma. The palate is similarly dark and rich, but a slightly tart, bitterness emerges. I can’t quite place whether it’s a citrusy or herbal off note, or just a youthful, underproofed quality, but it’s unwelcome and dampens an otherwise great experience. The mouthfeel and finish are also a bit thin and lacking. Overall, this is good bourbon that could have been excellent with a few minor improvements to the palate. A huge thank you to @jonwilkinson7309 for the generous sample!

Nose - cherry, menthol, caramel, vanilla, buttery cinnamon, cocoa, black pepper, mint, barrel char, orange zest, anise, mild to moderate ethanol burn. Taste - salted caramel, vanilla, cherry, orange zest, black pepper, cocoa, cinnamon, menthol, sour apple, mild to moderate alcohol bite, finishing short with cherry, caramel, and sour barrel spice flavors. Well I don’t have anymore Japanese whiskies to review, so I figured Blanton’s Japan-only release would be the next best thing. And what better way for Blanton’s to make this more like a Japanese whisky than to dilute all the character out of it. The nose is light compared to its standard-strength big brother. There’s caramel, that ubiquitous Blanton’s cherry note, some cinnamon, and a hefty dose of menthol. The palate is unpleasantly thin and mentholated with more cherry, sour oak spice, and a citrusy orange zest flavor. Unfortunately when cherry and menthol notes coexist, I always think of cough syrup, and nobody wants cough syrup in their Blanton’s. So this is exactly how I’d expect your bottle of Blanton’s to taste if you left your teenager home alone for a weekend. Fortunately, there’s a quality distillate underpinning this tragedy, but it’s a tragedy nonetheless. If you find yourself in Japan one day, pick up a bottle for $60 and make your thirsty friends thirstier. But please don’t spend $250 to procure one of these on the secondary market. The third option is to have an extremely generous friend gift you a bottle. A huge shout out to @pkingmartin for being that friend for me. At least it looks pretty on the shelf.

Nose - caramel, floral notes, honey, fig, rich malt, mild peat, apple, cinnamon, sandalwood, sawdust, cocoa, walnut, dry oak, hay, vanilla, lemon, mild to moderate ethanol burn. Taste - caramel, earthy mint, ginger, cocoa, coconut, cereal grain, sawdust, vanilla, honey, anise, orange, chili pepper, peat smoke, fig, apple, cinnamon, apricot, walnut, moderate alcohol bite, finishing medium length with fig, chocolate malt, honey, and peppery ginger flavors. So will my next Japanese whisky experience be an improvement over the Yamazaki 12 Year I tried yesterday? Well some may argue this isn’t really Japanese, but that’s a discussion for another time. The nose is rich, fruity, and floral. The casks involved present themselves very well here. There are honeyed and sherried fruits from the Oloroso casks and perfume-like sandalwood and coconut presumably from the Mizunara casks, but I have less experience with those. The palate is equally rich, with more fruits, mint, pepper, ginger, and a nice nuttiness. There’s also a hint of peat throughout the entire experience, although I’m not sure whether this is a peated distillate. Overall, this is certainly an improvement over the anemic Yamazaki 12 Year. There’s a nice richness to it that I don’t usually find with Japanese whiskies. The Shin tastes rather youthful, but it does have a nice oiliness to the mouthfeel. I tried the 15 Year version a while back and liked it as well, but it’s too long ago to make an educated comparison. Thank you to @ContemplativeFox for providing the generous sample!

Nose - lemon, grapefruit, apricot, fig, floral and fungal notes, cinnamon, honey, vanilla, toffee, white wine, earthy mint, walnut, milk chocolate, white pepper, orange, mild to moderate ethanol burn. Taste - grapefruit zest, lemon, fig, apricot, plum, ginger, light caramel, honey, vanilla, floral notes, buttery cinnamon, orange, mint, chili pepper, moderate alcohol bite, finishing medium short with citrus zest, honeyed fruits, and floral flavors. Before I knew anything about whisky, I knew that Pappy Van Winkle and Yamazaki were fancy. So a year ago when I saw that a few Virginia ABC stores near me had some in stock for the screaming deal of $113 a bottle, I snagged one. What a colossal waste of money that was. And still there are people torching over $200 for the opportunity to buy a bottle. The nose is light, citrusy, floral, and a tad fungal. Some of those sherried and honeyed fruit aromas come through as well, but it’s generally mild, pleasant, and frankly boring. The palate is about the same. A pinprick of mint, ginger, and pepper add some intrigue, but it’s mostly more floral, honey, and citrus flavors from the mid palate through to the short, underwhelming finish. Here’s the thing. It’s not bad whisky. It would actually be pretty decent whisky at $30 or even $40 a bottle. But this comes in at well over $100 in most markets, and there’s zero value to be found at that price. If you’re new to whisky and enamored by the mystique of Yamazaki, don’t make the same mistake I did. If you want a good Japanese whisky without breaking the bank, buy a bottle of Nikka from the Barrel and you’ll get a much better bang for your buck. I’m sure there are other good Japanese whisky values, but they’re few and far between in my experience. If you really want to try the Yamazaki, order it at a bar for a nominal fee and raise a toast to making good financial decisions.

Nose - guava, pineapple, mango, passion fruit, powdered sugar, ginger, mint, allspice, raspberry, nutmeg, strawberry jam, prepared caramel, vanilla bean, spicy oak, moderate ethanol burn. Taste - guava, strawberry, cherry, spearmint, ginger, cardamom, mango, pineapple, chili pepper, raspberry, grapefruit zest, sparkling apple cider, wine, allspice, clove, plum, spicy oak, moderate to high alcohol bite, finishing medium length with tart tropical fruit, spearmint, and bitter citrus flavors. This remains the single most expensive bottle I’ve ever purchased. I’ve waited a long time to review this one, mostly because I didn’t really like it when I cracked the bottle a year ago and wanted to give it some time to breathe. Well it’s had enough time, so let’s see if I’ve changed my mind. The nose leads with an explosion of tropical fruits, some of which I’ve never detected previously in a spirit. Past that, it’s jammy, minty, and a bit spicy with dense oak providing a strong backbone. The palate brings the tropical fruit, but the spicy, minty flavors are highlighted more than on the nose. There’s also a citrus hit alongside the strong oak presence that borders on tannic, but doesn’t quite get all the way there. So here comes the controversial opinion. I think this is beautifully crafted whisky, but I just don’t love it. And when I spend almost $500 on a bottle, I really want to love it. I’m having difficulty placing specifically what it is that I don’t like. Something about the combination of tropical fruits and spicy, oaky bitterness seems cacophonous. Back when I had a bottle of the 12 Year Cask Strength, I did a side-by-side and preferred it over this one. I even added some water, and it changed but didn’t make a material difference for me. Who knows. Maybe I just don’t like nice things or need to try more to be able to fully appreciate what Redbreast has produced here. Either way, it’s great whisky but I can’t score it any higher than that for now.

Nose - red berry, powdered sugar, marshmallow, honey, fig, vanilla cream, shortbread cookie, walnut, caramel, pineapple skin, grass, bitter herbal notes, nutmeg, clove, anise, banana, toasted coconut, raisin bread, moderate ethanol burn. Taste - cherry, strawberry, peach, honey, spearmint, ginger, chili pepper, caramel, vanilla, shortbread cookie, walnut, anise, apple, allspice, nutmeg, cocoa, plum, moderate to high alcohol bite, finishing medium length with red berry, spearmint, and herbal flavors. After an internal struggle, I decided to purchase the new and improved Redbreast Cask Strength, now with no age statement. Sarcasm fully intended. They even brazenly kept the price the same as its 12 Year predecessor. It’s actually more expensive in some places. So has this new NAS incarnation given Redbreast the flexibility to craft batches that far exceed the quality of the original? Let’s find out. Red berries leap from the glass on the nose. Following closely behind are honey, the classic shortbread cookies, a hint of tropical fruit, and creamy vanilla. Actually I’m getting strong strawberries and cream or fruity parfait vibes. The palate brings the same fruitiness, but also a very strong spearmint flavor. Chocolate and baking spices are present as well, but herbal notes provide the dominant counterbalance to those honeyed and sherried fruits. Long story short, I don’t think this is better than the 12 Year Cask Strength. As expected, it tastes noticeably younger. The dark, dried fruits are replaced with bright red ones. And the strong minty, herbal notes are an unwelcome addition in my opinion. Overall this is very good, but it pales in comparison to the original. This review is effectively based on the neck pour, so maybe some of the brightness will subside in a few months. I’ll post an update if it improves dramatically, but I doubt it will. I should have followed my instincts and left this one on the shelf, but unfortunately I’m $120 lighter for a whiskey that’s probably worth slightly more than half that.

Nose - cereal grain, honey, apple, caramel, vanilla, orange, lemon, cocoa, oat, fig, cinnamon, nutmeg, apricot, mild ethanol burn. Taste - cereal grain, orange, fig, vanilla, butterscotch, cinnamon, anise, sour apple, honey, cherry, lemon, pineapple, mild alcohol bite, finishing medium short with lemon, fig, and cereal grain flavors. Well after multiple false starts, I finally walked out of a liquor store with a bottle of Black Bush in hand. I’ve tasted this multiple times in the past, but never given it much thought until now. The nose is light, grainy, and fruity. The sherry is incorporated gently and presents as honeyed fig and apricot with a light dusting of cocoa. The palate is similarly grainy with some light citrus, baking spice, and a touch of tropical fruit. The biggest flaws I find are that it tastes young, underproofed, and watery. This is the definition of mild. Past that, it’s actually not bad at all. I was expecting something much more unpleasantly bright and sour, but everything is fairly well integrated. This is about as easy drinking as they come. It might be the most sessionable whiskey I’ve ever tasted. I’m actually surprised it’s 80 proof, as it drinks markedly lower. Overall this is completely average in every way, but it’s the kind of average I may want to keep on the shelf permanently for those times when I want something light, simple, and unassuming.