Tastes

134.6. That's the proof. That's a real proof there. That one. I think the highest proof rye I've ever had before this was 132 with Alberta Premium Cask Strength. And I love the Alberta. I like this more. Yes, I have tasted them side-by-side, and as has been noted, the 100% Rye of Alberta may give it less dimensionality than when you mix up the mash bill. When you taste them next to each other, you realize just how robust the JD is. It's full of flavor. Rounded. More complex. I should note that usually I only do one tasting a night. Tonight I've done three. Heading into Dry July, I'm trying to review all the bottles I have open that are right next door to done. So I missed out on the Barrel Proof Rye JD released during COVID. The special release. They get like 10 bottles for the whole state of Pennsylvania, sell them at SRP but you know, there's like 12 million people in PA. A lot are children. But a lot are adults and whisky drinkers. In other words, you're winning the lotto if you're getting a special release bottle. Which is why it warmed my heart that they were releasing a standard Single Barrel Barrel Proof Rye at $75. I picked up this one, opened it, loved it, went out and bought a second for posterity. Old age. When whiskies are just too expensive to buy anymore. When only the 1% can afford them. So the actual whisky here is great. One of the best ryes I've ever had, and I've had a lot of good ones. I mean, I love rye, more than bourbon, less than scotch. In between zone. The nose on this is candied, fruity, I sort of get a skittles vibe, taste the rainbow of fruit flavors. There is JD's signature banana, but there's also cherry red, and orange and lemon lime. It's kind of crazy to me why it's got this aroma, this is a rye, right? I've never even had a bourbon with such a sweet profile. This is pure desert whisky in a lot of ways. The palate has this crazy thing where it kind of tastes like, well, you ever get one of those swirling lollipops at the zoo that are...well, I've already mentioned it, a rainbow. All the colors. And the flavor isn't real fruit, it is artificial. Honestly, because of that, I could see this whisky turning some people off. The finish is long and that's the first place you get anything different from fruit flavors, a little added spice. I don't know. I have to be honest. I'm not always in the mood for this, so this bottle has lasted a lot longer than bottles usually last for me. I bought it and cracked it in late-January. I'm not one to open all my bottles and leave them for when I'm in the mood. I usually have a bottle of bourbon, a bottle of rye, a bottle of scotch and a bottle of Irish open and when I finish one, I crack another of that variety. The fact that I opened this in January and it's lasted until now is kind of a record for me. But this is my last pour. And I'm enjoying it. But I'm also not fretting. I have another in the basement shelving unit where I keep my whiskies. But I'll likely give it a few years. And if they release another batch this year, I'm all in. Love this stuff. Though I have to say their standard Single Barrel Barrel Proof is also amazing. Solid whisky through and through.

Is it possible to both think something is overrated and also enjoy it? That's often how I feel about Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. People seem to lose their minds about this stuff, and it's good, but is it lose your mind over it good? I suppose some batches might be. Since the end of 2022, I've been buying it when I see it, so I've had C922, A123, B523, A124, and now B524. Do you see a gap there? Yep, for some reason, we didn't get C923, the Whisky of the Year batch, here in Pennsylvania. At least not in my corner. Around the time our usual allocation would come in, we got one, but it was a double-dip of B523. They don't specify batches on our site, so I drove over and was fairly disappointed when I saw that it was a repeat instead of what's supposed to be the be-all-end-all of ECBP batches. And maybe I'm changing my tune now about overrated with B524. The others I've mentioned were all pretty good in their own ways, but B524 to me is, as the kids these days say, fire, and not in the sense that it's burning my nostrils and tongue. It's just fantastic. If C923 was considered the height of ECBP, I can only imagine how good it is given how much I love B524. Yesterday, I reviewed New Riff Single Malt, which came in at about 114 proof and burned the hairs out of my nose, even with a half hour in the glass for some of those fumes to evaporate. This is exactly the opposite, about 130 proof and lovely to the nose. It's rich with caramel, nutmeg, vanilla and oak with a particular emphasis on the caramel, which has always been one of my favorite notes in a bourbon. The palate is a bit spicier and shows its proof but comes off with a cinnamon red-hots flavor, creamy vanilla, butterscotch, and oak. And this finish continues the cinnamon/nutmeg spice and just goes on for days. Honestly, given that we always get our ECBP at SRP, this might be a repeat purchase for me, though I've tapped my whisky budget this month buying two bottles of Larceny Barrel Proof (my preferred barrel proof, maybe up until now) A124, which is also just delectable and which we also get at SRP. These bourbons are really knocking it out of the park this year (though ECBP A124 wasn't necessarily a rebuy, though I liked it).

Ah, the Ardbeg Uigeadail. Is there a harder name to pronounce in the world of whiskey? The blurb on the bottle provides a pronunciation key, and I'm still not sure I'm saying it correctly. As for spelling it, well, that's what the copy and past function is for. Wanna mess with some elementary schoolers, put this one in their spelling bee. For its flavor profile, the bottle states, Treacle, Bacon, Bonfires, on the label. Seems pretty accurate, though I've never tasted treacle to my knowledge. A syrup made of refined sugar I'm seeing, tarry, like molasses. So I have the idea. I ordered a bottle of this during COVID, popped it open back when my dad, my brother-in-law and I were watching Eagles games by moving the TV out to my driveway and sitting six feet apart, when Carson Wentz was still the quarterback and we were still having trouble admitting that he was never coming back from the injured ACL he got that season he brought our team to the Super Bowl, back when Uigeadail was about $10 cheaper (we're only talking 3 years ago, but might as well be a lifetime the way prices are skyrocketing). Anyway, I cracked the bottle for the Baltimore game and it helped take the sting off the fact the Eagles lost. It was my first high-proof Islay, and it was everything I dreamed, all those flavors amped up to 11. When the price went up, I wasn't sure I'd buy another. Seemed kind of hefty for an NAS, even if it was cask strength, even if it was an Islay, but it was my favorite of the Ardbeg core range, so here we are a few years later, and I buy a second bottle. Of course, I've found an Ardbeg I like more in the BizarreBQ, but that's limited edition, and though I purchased two of those before they went out of stock, I'm probably not getting access to any more, so those are treasures in my collection, bottles to break out when the asteroid is heading to earth. Or, you know, maybe I'll open something better. Splurge. Buy that Laphroaig 25 I've had my eye on that's way out of my price range. The nose here has a touch of sweetness underlying the smoke, is that what they mean by treacle? Is that what treacle tastes like? Sorry, smells like. The smoke is a dry smoke, great aroma. There is the slight hint on the back end of band-aid. Maybe a hint of dark chocolate. The palate adds a meatiness to the smoke. I suppose you could call it bacon, but it could be a number of cured meats because it has that trace of salinity. The finish brings back the hint of sweetness that again, I can't define. The reviewer here notes that it's a bit of sherried scotch in the mix, which could very well be the case. Overall, it's got a nice rich mouthfeel and was worth the asking price three years ago. Now I'm not sure I can justify paying that despite how much I like it. I'd rather buy a Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength or Talisker's Distillers Edition, which are both in the same ballpark.

I have to say it: this is the first New Riff I've had that isn't coming off for me. I seem to be in the minority here, or am I? I do wonder sometimes if the goodwill a decent distillery generates will find people willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when they release something that doesn't quite meet expectations, especially if they're swinging for the fences. And I should also frame this by saying that I still haven't had a bad New Riff. Everything I've read about this makes it sound ambitious and had me excited for it, but it's just not that enlivening. This is the kind of whisky where, when I taste it, and I see good reviews, I feel like I have to look them up to see what are other people getting that I'm not? Though it's a lower proof than a lot of other barrel/cask strength whiskies I drink, it's hot all around, the nose has an ethanol burn to it that prevents the whisky from offering any aromas other than oak and sweetness, but the sweetness is indistinct. It could be vanilla, could be cherry, I'm having trouble parsing that out against the heat. As I sit with it more, there might even be a bit of cocoa powder coming through, but none of them are strong enough to make me feel like I could sit here all day nosing it like I do with some whiskies. It's only about 114 proof, but I can't keep my nose near the glass long enough not to wince back after a few seconds, and the glass has been sitting for a while now. (To compare, earlier tonight, I had a glass of Larceny BP A124 and that's 124 proof and I had no such trouble enjoying the aroma of the bourbon). The palate has an herbal tea quality, the bergamot often found in certain ryes, with an underlying sweetness. Oak again with tobacco and maybe a hint of darker fruits, plum or blackberries. The palate is definitely stronger in terms of presentation than the nose, and though you can still feel the heat, the influence of the ethanol has been toned down considerably, though by the time it hits the back of your throat, the heat reasserts itself in a spicy finish. It's the kind of thing that they might refine for future releases, but I don't think they quite hit what they were going for here, and if I were going to buy it again, I'd wait for a future iteration rather than seeking out another bottle of the Fall 2023 bottling. Not quite enough to turn me away from New Riff, but it was pretty expensive for a bottle I didn't much enjoy. I kept hoping that with time and air, it might improve, but it's remained consistently slightly above average throughout the experience and certainly doesn't hold up in a lineup of better whiskies (I served this on Father's day right after Highland Park Cask Strength Batch 4, and let's just say, that while my dad drank it, he didn't look at me after his first sip and say, "Oh, that's really good" as he'll often do with most of the whiskies I serve him). Oh well.

This one is a bit strange for a 100% rye. For example, Alberta Premium Cask Strength is a 100% rye, and though there's a bit of caramel and mint mixed in, what's prominent with APCS is the spice, the rye, the cinnamon, little bit of nutmeg. The Whistlepig Piggyback Single Barrel has a little bit of spice, but what predominates here is are aromas of cherry and cola, reminiscent in some ways of Sazerac, which is decidedly not a 100% rye (the mashbill is undisclosed, but naturally if it were 100% rye, there wouldn't be any mashbill to not disclose). Rye spice takes over the nose as it sits in the glass with a little ethanol, but if you're used to Barrel Strength whiskies, it's not overwhelming (I've noticed that people who don't do high proof always find things I believe are perfectly palatable to be extremely hot). On the palate, it's not amazingly complex, but it's creamy and there's vanilla and caramel and spice with the cherry returning during the long finish. Overall, not necessarily a rebuy, but at $60, I can't regret it either. In the future I'd rather splurge the extra $10 to get a Knob Creek Single Barrel Rye or even pay the same price and get Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye. But it also wasn't a bottle I was about to turn my nose up at either. I waited until the last pour to review it hoping it would reveal itself a bit more to me, but it was essentially a one-trick pony all the way through. Still, sometimes one trick pony's can be tasty enough to enjoy on their own. This was one. But that also means, it's a one-buy whisky and I have no problems with that. P. S. I realize upon further reflection that when I say cherry here, it sometimes tastes like cherry cola and at other times Robitussin cherry. Kind of goes back and forth. For what it's worth, the Robitussin might sound bad, but it's kicks in a certain nostalgia of my mom taking care of me when I was a child and had a cold.

Reading through the other tastings here, I see some love, I see some hate, and I have to say, I really don't understand the hate. 1792 Full Proof carries a quintessential bourbon profile. The nose is oak, vanilla and cinnamon spice, this last perhaps emerging from the fact it's 125 proof. The palate has a creamy mouthfeel with caramel emerging to accompany the vanilla, oak, and spice, and the finish is long and lingers, leaving me wanting more. In fact, I had lucked into this online, since it's allocated in my area and was almost hesitant to buy it with the way people were lukewarm about it, but it's $45, which puts it in the same ballpark as Maker's Mark Cask Strength, and having tasted both, I'd say they punch the same weight with the Maker's having a few notes of chocolate and cherries to perhaps push it a bit over the edge. But although I prefer the Maker's CS, it's also widely available in my neck of the woods, so when I stepped into the store last week and saw 1792 Full Proof on the shelf, I nabbed myself another bottle and might pick up a third this week if it's still there, you know, just for good measure. A lot of higher priced Cask Strength and Full Proof bottles are more complex, I'll grant you that, but they're also selling for anywhere from $20-$50 more than this. So for my money, I'll take 1792 FP anytime I see it on the shelf and bring it home and enjoy it. For all of you who dislike it, well, more for me, right?

First I reviewed the Bruichladdich Classic Laddie and pointed out that despite the apparent note on the bottle that it was unpeated, I couldn't help but detect a bit of smoke in the background. It was a perfect summer scotch for drinking at the beach, not that I've ever done so, since the beach town we go to is a dry one, and even if it weren't, I'm pretty sure drinking on the beach is something you're really only supposed to do on the DL, most of the time with cans of beer in cozies that hide the fact it's not soda. The Laddie was malty, citric, with notes of sea salt and light peat in the background. When I reviewed Glenglassaugh's Sandend whisky here, which one Whisky Advocate's 2023 Whisky of the Year, I was lukewarm mainly because, as I pointed out then, it has basically the same aroma and flavor profile as The Classic Laddie, even has the same proof at 100, but it comes $10-$20 more depending on where you're acquiring it. I was even able to test my theory as I had an open bottle of Laddie and Sandend at the same time, and they're not EXACTLY the same, but they are so closely identical, that unless there's a note in the Sandend you really prefer that's absent from the Laddie, there's no point in paying the extra for the Sandend. Why am I brining this up here and now? It's because Silkie Irish Whiskey, despite being Irish and despite being 92 proof, is extremely similar to both those whiskies and you can get this one for aboutr $40, which is $20 cheaper than Laddie and $30 cheaper than Sandend. Which is surprising. I had the Dark Silkie, which is not at all like the standard Silkie. I liked the Dark Silkie because it's more heavily peated than this, but the peat is kind of rubbery, which is an interesting taste, but also maybe it's not going to appeal to everyone, not even peat fans. The standard Silkie is, in fact, described as lightly peated, which is perhaps what puts me in mind of the Laddie, there's a slight touch there, not enough to be overwhelming but enough that those who don't drink peat will say, "Oh, this is peaty." So in the end I'm a fan and a convert. If I want an Irish, this is now going to be my go-to budget bottle given just how good it is vs. value for money. If I'm going Bruichladdich in the future, it's much more likely to be the Port Charlotte 10, and if I'm going Glenglassaugh, well, I'm sorry to say, they didn't impress me enough with the Sandend for me to consider being a returning customer. I've never had an Irish whiskey that has reminded me so much of a scotch, so that alone makes this a winner.

I'm a little embarrassed by how much I love this whisky. I'm also a little surprised, given how good it is, that it only has a collective rating of 3.85 here. I'm going to talk a little about another whisky first: the Loch Lomond 12 Year, because there are similarities, and I understand, among the people that I follow here, that opinion is divided on the Loch Lomond 12 Year. So, some love that whisky, some seem to despise it. Last time I bought a bottle of the LL12 (for short), it was 35 dollars for a smoky budget scotch that tasted like an orchard bonfire with a slightly strange chemical medicinal taste in the finish that kind of made me see why some would dislike it and some would like it. It all depends on where your focus was and whether you could overlook that artificial aftertaste. If you could, you like it; if you can't, you don't. The Benriach Smoky Twelve I would describe in similar terms to the LL12. Orchard bonfire. The aroma on the nose is smoky. The smoke isn't quite as deep or overwhelming as an Islay scotch, but there is a decent amount of smoke on the nose with aromas of peach or apricot and vanilla. It's like LL12 only done better. On the palate, the fruit and vanilla is more prominent with a citrus edge shining through next to the smoke and peach flavors. The finish is moderate and leaves you with a smoky feel and a slight chocolaty note. Again, it's like LL12 only done better and without that sort of artificiality. If you though LL12 was promising but not quite there, you might like this a lot. I had a bottle of this in 2021, shortly after getting vaccinated for COVID and I had my brother in law to the house and we quaffed this. If you're looking for something smoky that isn't quite a medicinal as Laphroaig or bacony as Talisker or tarry as Ardbeg, reach for this. Might be a good gateway smoky scotch. Gotta be honest, I love this stuff and don't know why it was three years between bottles. Oh, and I got a $5 off coupon for this, so it was $61 instead of $66. Bonus points.

Two new releases from Beam Suntory on the Overholt line in one year? Yes, please. I picked up the 10 Year Cask Strength first but haven't opened it yet since $100 whiskies tend to be special occasion whiskies for me (meaning football season with my dad). This one, the Monongahela Mash, I got last Friday and had been meaning to pick up for a while. Had to snatch up the 10 Year CS quick because I missed out on the 11 Year from a few years back. Kept meaning to get to it, but never found myself picking it up and then, it was gone. Vanished from the shelves. I've always liked Overholt as a budget rye. There are a lot of good budget ryes out there, a few I would say are better than Overholt Bonded, but Overholt Bonded can hold its own straight or in cocktails as an enjoyable sip that won't break the bank. Initial reviews I've read of the A. Overholt Monongahela Mash have noted that it tastes good, but Breaking Bourbon quibbled with the price vs. age. A 4-year rye, they claim, shouldn't cost $40. But then, if you think of all the NAS scotches these days going for over $100, dropping $40 on a known quantity doesn't seem so bad. Now whether it's better than other ryes in its price range is a matter for debate. Overall, the end product is solid. Because the mashbill is 80% rye, 20% malted barley, you get a nice mix of sweet and spicy all around, and the nose, if I'm not mistaken, is reminiscent of another great budget rye, the standard Sazerac, in that the nose has a good mix of cherry cola aromas with vanilla and rye spice. The palate brings the spice forward with a little bit of heat and pepper and clove, but maintains the fruity edge of cherry in the background. It's not amazingly complex, but the flavors mix well on the palate, the finish is moderate in length, not particularly long, but not coming in too short either. Sort of a goldilocks finish in being just right. Overall, Breaking Bourbon might be right about the price point. While it's not going to break the bank, it's similar enough to Sazerac in my opinion that at $10 cheaper, I'd likely reach for another bottle of that before I drop the money on this again, but I certainly wouldn't tell you to avoid it if your curiosity is piqued and you're in the mood for something new. I don't have an open bottle of Sazerac with me right now so I can't compare them side-by-side though that might be interesting given how this reminds me of that. Also, I don't know how far this goes with the rest of you, but I love the look of the bottle, and it sits nicely displayed on the shelf. The brown tint gives it an old-timey medicinal feel from the good ol' days when doctors prescribed whiskey as a cure-all. Sure, the other Overholt bottles have the same tint, but this one has the angular shape and that picture of the balding mustachioed Overholt on the neck label as if to say, this has stature, look at this respectable old man gussied up like your grandpa. Don't you trust him? Well, at this point, I do. I like Overholt. I'll probably keep trying their new releases the more they emerge. Given I'm only the third reviewer here, I hesitate to bring down its 4-star aggregate rating by giving it a 3.5 (that usually starts to imply to people's minds that this is a subpar whisky when it's far from it), but this really is a solid 3.5 in my book when weighing all the factors including price. So, if you're into rye, try it. If you like your ryes with some sweetness mixed in, try it. If you're into bourbon, you might still like this one, though there's enough spice on the palate that it might put the candy-drinking bourbon drinkers off. That's okay. You can't please everyone all the time. Can't wait to get to the 10 Year CS myself though. Oh, the anticipation!

Compass Box isn't a brand they carry in the FW&GS in my state, but I can get it when I go to Jersey. Last Sunday, my wife suggested an impromptu trip to the OC boardwalk to eat pizza, curly fries, and ice cream and shop the stores with the kids, but my real treat is stopping at Circle Liquors on the way out of town to pick up bottles I can't get at home. This go-around I nabbed the New Riff Sour Mash Single Malt 7 Year (FW&GS sells New Riff, but only the BiB Rye and Bourbon and Single Barrels of each), which I haven't cracked yet, and this one, Compass Box's Glasgow Blend. I've only had the Peat Monster previously, which I enjoyed but don't consider a re-purchase because for its price I can get Ardbeg 10 or Laphroaig 10, which are both superior. My whisky budget was kind of tapped out for this month by the time I hit Circle Liquors or I might have picked up Compass Box's Artist's Blend, which is a similar price to this at $34.99, and I'm kind of wondering why I didn't. After all, at $34.99, I'm going to dabble with anything peated and while I'm scoring this a 3.25 overall. I can't call it a letdown. It's not the most amazingly complex whisky you'll encounter, but the price tag should have clued you in on that. Blended scotches can be really good, just ask anyone who has tasted Johnnie Walker Green, and this one, for its price, has quite a nice nose. It's listed as being finished in Oloroso Sherry Casks, but there's only a slight trace of sherried sweetness in the aroma. Mostly it's cured meats, bacon fat, sea salt. I'm not sure what they used for the component parts but it's got a character between Ardbeg and Talisker leaning more toward Talisker. And the nose is really the high point here, so enjoy it if you're pouring yourself a dram. The flavor is nice, warm, gentle. There's peat, but there's also vanilla, sea salt, and butterscotch (which I believe is where my brain goes when something tastes like "toffee pudding" which is how I guess what I'm tasting is described on the bottle) though of course, here, when I say butterscotch, I don't mean the hard candies your grandma handed out but the icing on the Krimpet bearing that name from TastyKake. If that sounds good, it is, but the mouthfeel is a little watery at 86% abv. And oh, I just found the fact sheet while I was writing this, it's on the site at Compass Box, and the peated mixture comes from Laphraoig and Clynelish, so I was WAY off. Oh well, I'll admit it here. Still, it's flavor profile is pretty enjoyable. Where this tasting falls off is the finish which is so short as to be next door to nonexistent. Oh well, what do you expect from a $34.99 bottle of blended scotch? It's solid for what it is, and if you expect that headed in, you won't be let down. Overall, I'm not sure I'd buy this one again, but I'll enjoy the botttle, and I am likely, given the quality here, to give the Artist's Blend a go when I'm back in Ocean City.