Tastes

Paul John, as a brand, first came on my radar, when the Nirvana hit the Best Values section of Whisky Advocate's reviews. Now I've said this before in comments, but I'm not sure I included it in a review: I don't necessarily takes what the Advocate says as verbatim truth. They are a lifestyle magazine, but a subscription costs $22/year and you get decent articles, glossy pictures of whisky bottles, and although the reviews never seem to dip below 87 for anything, their Editor's Choice, Best Value and Collectibles Choices are pretty spot-on. Or, I should say the Editor's Choice and Best Value are. I don't really have the deep pockets for their collectible recommendations. If the Best Value picks are in my region, I almost always pick up a bottle, and that was especially the case when I had two kids in daycare and was barely making ends meet (thank god for public schools, am I right? If nothing else, they let daddy afford more expensive whiskies). The Nirvana is Paul John's 80 proof single malt expression, and while it's never going to change anyone's life, at $26 a bottle and with some nice fruitiness, it punches at a weight really only challenged by Dewar's 12. I've only ever had the one bottle about two years ago, but I remember it being entirely serviceable and I wasn't embarrassed to serve it to company. The only other expressions available in my region were the Christmas 2019 and the Christmas 2020 as well as this Select Cask. Given the community score here, I wasn't really seeking the Select Cask, but the Christmas editions seemed appropriate for the festive season, and I was waiting for the festive season to purchase them. Apparently, waiting paid off, as both Christmas expressions went on clearance at 50% off, so I scored them both for $45. And the Select Cask went on Clearance for the same, so instead of $100, it was $50. And so, like any self-respecting curious whisky fan, I snatched up all three, even if the community score for the Select Cask was only 3.4, the lowest of all the whiskies in my collection on this site. This absolutely boggles the mind because this whisky is definitely better than a 3.4, better than deserving the lowest score of anything I own (to put this in context, Tullamore DEW's standard expression is a 3.5). It might be the price. If I hadn't picked this up for $50, I might have felt that it didn't live up to what I paid. But then again, I generally only pay $100 for Islay Scotches. So I'd have never bothered with it if it hadn't gone on clearance. I opened this, this past Sunday, the same day I opened a Johnnie Walker Green, and the Green was far superior but there were similarities in terms of bright fruitiness, even if the fruits differed. Nosing this, there's an odd funk that comes from an admixture of papaya, kiwi, coconut, and mango. I'm curious as to how this comes about. How you can take grains and get such variety of scents. And honestly, I've never had these aromas in anything else. But I'm still trying to figure out what the funk is, because if it were just those scents clean, this would be an amazing dram. There's also something of a solvent in there, something chemical that keeps this from being top tier. But that solvent isn't enough to ruin the nose. The palate, overall, is a combination of the tropical fruits in the nose that end up coming of as a tropical fruit punch with that alcohol edge you get at 102 proof. I gave a sip to my wife, who prefers bourbon and Irish whiskies, and she started coughing because it went down the wrong pipe, but whereas some 117 proof whiskies don't drink like their proof, this feels like it drinks a bit higher than 102. Not that I mind, it's not harsh, but it's...sharp? The finish remains fruity with a slight slight bite to it. And really, what keeps this from being a higher rating is a lack of balance. All the elements are here to make a good whisky, but they just don't come off perfectly. It's like when you watch someone do a great routine on the balance beam, perfectly execute a double backflip off of it, and then just stagger a step as they hold their arms up in the air. Oh, I'll be finishing this bottle with relish, but you can see how this doesn't quite reach it's full potential. When they figure it out, this could be absolutely amazing.

I've been sitting on this bottle a while. I bought one at the tail end of 2019. Then, that following June, I bought another and gave it to my dad on Father's Day. Not sure why, having not opened or tasted it, I decided it was the right choice, but my dad likes your standard 100 proof Knob Creek Rye, the price was going up $10 on the barrel select (I got mine and the Father's Day bottle for $50 and have since bought another at $60), so I figured why the hell not? And when my dad opened his, I tasted it and thought it was pretty damn fine, but I didn't necessarily need to rush to open mine at that point, since I prefer spreading my tasting of good bottles out. Yesterday, I have my dad and my brother-in-law over to watch the Eagles play the Colts, and even though our team ended up pulling it out in the end, I don't think it's too bold a statement to say that the whisky I served was far better than the game. In addition to serving the Laphroaig 10 Sherry Oak and Ardbeg Beastie, I served the Sagamore Spirits Single Barrel Rye as well as opening Paul John Cask Select, Johnnie Walker Green, and Knob Creek Single Barrel Rye. Now, I'll have reviews of the Paul John and Johnnie Walker coming up, and those are interesting when paired in that they have very similar fruity notes, but the Walker is much better balanced than the Paul John (both were very good). But it was also a revelation tasting the Knob Rye Single Barrel after the Sagamore Single Barrel. Now, I'm giving this the same rating as the Sagamore because I think both are amazing. And being ryes both, they have similar notes. But the Knob is the subtler of the two. The Sagamore is your full orchestra and the Knob is a string quartet. The Sagamore is in your face and brash, Johnny Cash giving you that middle finger, and the Knob is an unplugged set by Neil Young, sitting along on stage with an acoustic guitar. The nose on the Knob has a graceful sweetness, a sort of maple toffee clove aroma with a slight hint of mint in the background. On the palate, you get spicy rye and vanilla with that slight edge of mint carrying through and a little bit of the earl gray tea taste on the back end. The finish is long and rich, but overall leaves me with the impression of elegance. While that Sagamore was brash, this Knob is refined. There's a place for both obviously, and giving them the same score, I can't pick one over the other. They're both well worth your while. The only question is, does the quality hold over the years? We'll have to wait and see, since I'm in no rush to open the 2022 bottling I bought. This was put in the barrel 10/8/2013 and bottled 3/27/2019, Warehouse W-K, Floor F-02, Rick R-08. Genuinely pleasing and will probably be gone far too quickly. This is a must try for all lovers of rye.

How many times has it happened to you that you keep meaning to try a whisky but the bottle is always there? It's never really gone from the shelves, so you figure, yeah, yeah, I'd like to try that, but it's always around, so I should probably buy that one instead. And you take it for granted that you'll always be able to get your hands on the one you've just passed up. So you buy the allocated bottle, the limited edition bottle, the store pick that you know won't hang around for long. Even if you have suspicions that the ubiquitous bottle is probably superior. Until I bought this bottle, there were two major blind spots with which this applied for me: Wild Turkey Rare Breed Bourbon (I've had the Rare Breed Rye because that was in short supply and disappeared around here, so I had to get it when it was there and picked it up quick) and Pikesville Rye, which I've heard isn't readily available in lots of markets but seems to be readily available around here. And I need to get to Pikesville, but here I'm finally hitting up the Rare Breed Bourbon, and I'm here to report that this bourbon is Flava Flav's opposite: believe the hype. This is lovely stuff at $46.99. The nose is very sweet, caramel corn and vanilla are the most prominent aromas with a light touch of orange peel and maybe the slightest touch of mint in the background. On the palate, I'm getting more citrus and caramel, the citrus having a candied feel, with a nice hit of smooth oak. At 116 proof, it's just at the upper threshold of what I'm willing to enjoy neat. Hell, even my wife, when she sipped it, didn't complain about the burn, and she prefers 100 proof as the upper range of what she usually tolerate, so it drinks much easier than its proof would suggest. The finish is rich and flavorful with the sweet fading into the lightest touch of spice. The only problem I can see with the widely available bottle is there's not really all that much new or unique you can say about it. It's really meant more to be enjoyed than picked apart and reviewed. Even saying that about it sounds like I'm saying something that someone else has already said. Overall, given how available it is, I feel like this is one I should stock up on at some point in case it actually starts to disappear from shelves. Never hurts to have a bottle or four stashed in the cupboard where I keep my collection. Now, it's really about time I get around to buying that bottle of Pikesville I've always intended to get to, isn't it?

I became a fan of Sagamore last year, in August, when I picked up their Distiller's Select Tequila Finished Rye. Although I acknowledge that taste is subjective, I'm going to stand up for the Tequila Finished Rye and say that the "expert" review here is simply wrong, and it's not deserving of an 82. On Whisky Advocate, it got a 87, which is low for them (they tend to grade up) with a note that it was too grainy. I'm calling bullshit. I liked the Tequila Finished Rye so much that rather than ignore the fact that people are dissing it, I feel the need to stand and defend it. It recently disappeared from stores around here, and I'm not sure they're still making it, but if you can find one, pick it up. It's delicious. And also interesting. Maybe that's what the low scores are about. It's divisive. Drinkhacker, however, gave it an A, so I'm gonna give a little nod to Drinkhacker for that. You guys got what they were doing. You loved it. And I feel simpatico with you on that. I picked up this Barrel Select prior to picking up the Tequila Finished Rye. I just didn't get around to opening it. I do that sometimes. I remember the day I picked this up. It was either late June or early July. I'd broken a tooth. It was a capped tooth with a root canal, so I wasn't in pain, but I had to go to the dentist to get the jagged little piece that was still in my gums removed, and then get a bone graft to set me up for getting an implant (which I still haven't been in for...New Year's resolution anyone?). They hit me with Novocain, and then the dentist yanked and wiggled in a circular motion until she managed to get it out, and though it wasn't the worst experience I'd ever had at the dentist, I figured I deserved to treat myself to something nice. So, driving home, I passed a Fine Wine and Good Spirits that isn't my regular Fine Wind and Good Spirits and stopped in and picked up this: Barrel 128, Location F4/R5, which means bubkis to me and likely means bubkis to you (unless, naturally, you can commit random numbers to memory and happen to find yourself browsing through the store and discover that your local store picked their barrel from the same part of the warehouse, which...what are the odds?). Nevertheless, I digress as I always do (I think most of you have caught on that for me this site is less for whisky reviews and serves as more of a whisky journey diary, right?). I opened this two weeks ago, Thursday night, as the Eagles played the Texans, and me and my dad partook. And it was quite good then, but two week's worth of time and a little bit of air have made this amazing. Upon opening it was nice and rich and full of spice on both the nose and palate with a wonderfully long finish. It carries an age statement of 6 years, which for a rye, is a decent amount of time in the barrel. With the air and the time open, the spicy nose has become muted, but not to its detriment. Rather the nose is a lovely mixture of cardamom and bergamot, a sort of wonderfully festive mixture that suits the November/December cold, the Thanksgiving season, and Christmas being around the corner. For being spicy, it also has this refreshingly clean open scent that I'm really digging tonight. There's also a sort of fruitiness to it I'd describe searching my mind as orange sherbet. Honestly, I've had whiskies before where I'd like their nose to be turned into a candle scent, but this might be in the lead for that category. Just wonderful. Moving to the palate, the bergamot is still there, but it's subtler than on the nose. The orange sherbet evolves to more a spiced cider with a wedge of orange and a cinnamon stick floating in it. And the finish carries through on that cinnamon lingering nice and long. My only regret is that for $54.99, I didn't pick up another. I started this review with a score of 4 starts, but as I sip and type, I keep going back to the rating up top and creeping this up. I'm a fan of rye over almost any other style of whisky except peated scotch so keep that in mind, but this is better than Alberta Cask Strength and better than Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye, and given that I have the Sagamore 8 Year, this has me looking forward to that with great anticipation. We don't get a lot of Sagamore in the PA stores for some reason (hell, I had to buy the 8 Year in Jersey). I don't really know why, since it's not like Baltimore is all that far off, but when I look at their site and see all the different things they're doing with rye, all the different finishes they're trying out, I can't help feeling like a visit to the distillery is in order, a visit in which I leave with an empty trunk and come back with a full one. I certainly hope that local stores haven't given up on the barrel picks and they're just temporarily out of stock. I know that Sagamore used to source and is trying to incorporate more of their own juice into their new products. I'm just hoping they don't end up going the way of High West with that. Because the Sagamore whiskies I've had have really been winners. Come to think of it, I haven't bothered with their standard bottling yet, but I'm kind of curious as to how their regular rye stacks up against all the rest in that range. Thoughts? Opinions?

There's really no such thing as objectivity in a tasting is there? Any tasting we ever write up is always influenced by prior experience. Your mind searches for comparisons as the liquid hits your lips. What other similar experiences have I had? What's new about this? Is it greater than or less than whiskies of a similar style, age, price? If you've only had Dewar's, Cutty, and Johnnie Walker Red, you're going to have a favorite among those. Then maybe someone introduces you to Johnnie Walker Black. Or Glenlivet. Or Glenfiddich. You try the 12, the 15, the 18. Your world expands. Your old favorites are no longer your current favorite. To my mind, this is a good thing. It means one's growing, expanding the palate, recognizing there's more to life. It's time to get out, get going, see new places, try new foods. The world is large and contains multitudes! The reason I bring this up here is that about a year ago, I could see myself going 4.5 on this one. Granted that's a half star higher than I'm rating this here. It's still a Laphroaig and it's still delicious. But about a year ago, I hadn't had the Laphroaig 2021 Cairdeas PX Cask. I hadn't had the Talisker Distillers Edition. Now if we're searching for comparisons, Talisker DE's a better point to work from. The Cairdeas was 117 proof. It was much bolder and richer than either the DE or the Laphroaig 10 Sherry Oak Finish. What it lacked in an age statement, it more than made up for in power hitting. And of course, while the Cairdeas was $100, both the Talisker DE and the Laphroaig 10 Sherry Cask sell for $84.99, both are 92 proof, and what distinguishes all three, of course, is the sherry finish. Now one of my limitations here is that I couldn't tell you what the difference is between finish a peated scotch in Oloroso (Laphroaig 10 Sherry) vs. PX (Cairdeas) vs. Amoroso (Talisker Distillers Edition). If anyone would care to enlighten me as to what kind of subtle distinction this makes, please feel free to comment or to point me to page in which the distinction is made (yes, I could Google it, I suppose, and I may get around to that; I simply haven' yet). In any case, I also don't have the three lined up side-by-side, but when I opened this bottle Monday night with my dad (to watch our team get trounced), neither of us reacted in quite the same way as we did when we tasted the Talisker DE. If you haven't read my review of the DE, I mentioned that it was the kind of whisky that made me wonder why I ever drink anything else. Perhaps it was simply the mood in the room, as our defense couldn't get off the field. As we watched Washington run the ball down our team's throat. But neither of us seemed overwhelmed that night by how good this whisky is. Don't get me wrong, we weren't underwhelmed either. We liked it well enough that between us, we finished half the bottle. And what's odd, nosing it now, is that I'm not finding a whole lot of difference between this and the Talisker Distillers Edition. The nose has the sweetness of sherry mixed with a savory saline aroma that I suppose here is more band-aid and iodine whereas with the Talisker it was more bacon and sea salt. I suppose in just writing that down, you get the sense that the aroma of bacon and sea salt are likely slightly more pleasing. As it moves to the palate the sweetness becomes more prominent with the peat taking a back seat and a slight hit of chocolate creeping in, though mind you I'm also tasting this after a word dinner Wednesday where I bit off too large a steaming piece of salmon and couldn't spit it out (it was a work dinner) so I moved it back and forth between the sides of my mouth with my tongue until it was cool enough, in the process burning the entire top of my mouth until a curtain of singed flesh hung down. So, I'm at a bit of a handicap palate-wise here. I've got no complaint overall about the flavor, but the mouthfeel is a bit thin. The finish itself lingers for a decent while and is where the peat comes through most prominently, but I'm left wondering here whether the Sherry Oak finish gives it enough umph to justify paying an extra $25 over the regular Laphroaig 10 Year. After all, the original is a classic. This seems like a good one to keep around for special occasions if you can't get your hands on the Talisker Distillers Edition, but all things being equal, I have to favor the Talisker. Not that I'd turn up my nose if this were offered. In fact, my brother-in-law and dad will be back over on Sunday, and I plan to include this in the lineup I'm serving. It's solid. Very good. Just not quite excellent in the way I want it to be excellent. My advice: either go the extra $15 to get the Carideas or save yourself a quarter of a hundred dollars and hit up the original. PS. I still love you Laphroaig.

It's my birthday, my friends! And so in honor of me turning 19, just like this whiskey, I figured I'd pop this open. Just kidding. Approaching mid-40s here. Feeling that. And so I suppose you could say I opened it so I could feel less like that tonight and more like that tomorrow. Ah, Kilbeggan. I like their Small Batch Rye a lot, not a huge fan of their Single Pot Still. But I couldn't possibly pass this up: a 19-Year Single Grain that, because of the recent clearance sale, I copped for $44.99 instead of list price $89.99. Can you really beat something like that? Also my understanding is that this is a Pennsylvania exclusive. Or at least, that's what I read in the only site I found that reviewed this, WhiskyCast. So, a little preliminaries. It's been a lovely evening. I was vegetarian for about a decade but earlier this year went back to eating fish, so my wife took me out for sushi tonight. She also baked a chocolate brownie cake with Oreo cookie icing that used about 10 sticks of butter and half a small carton of heavy whipping cream, so my arteries might need a little break going forward, and now the kids are in bed, and I just cracked the Kilbeggan 19 and poured us both a dram (my wife loves Irish whiskey and bourbon). And the burning question (or maybe not so burning if you're not in PA and can't get your hands on it ) is, how is it? The nose is a delectable combination of apple, butterscotch and vanilla icing (although maybe that's the Oreo icing stuck in my beard). The apple aroma has a slight edge of fermented cider that pushes this into that realm that's a cut above the usual apple that can be found in Irish whiskey, a little bit more tart than ripe fresh apple. More like an apple desert. And the apple seems to alternate, every time I take a whiff with that strong vanilla cream with the butterscotch stealing in now and then. Overall just lovely on the nose. The palate is nice, though I'm not sure I like it quite as much as the nose. We'll have to see how it develops. It's dry and tannic and spicy. A little bit of pear with a very light honey presence. A slight ethanol edge that leads to a finish that's mostly spice, I'm thinking white pepper. Overall, I'd say I'm happy I got it for $45 instead of $90 as I'm not in love with the palate, though I could nose this all day long. In the end, it's a worthwhile purchase if only to experience what a 19 Year Single Grain is like for this price. I'll be interested to see how the bottle develops over time, as this doesn't strike me as a go-to regular drinker, but I'm sure I'll break it out the next time my dad and brother-in-law are over to see what their thoughts are, and since my wife was just brushing the kids' teeth before bed, she hasn't weighed in and her reflections often differ from mine. But I get the sense she'll be appreciative of it as something new and different. And there goes another year, folks. Here's to another and another I hope. 19 more and 19 more, if that's what I'm given. And hopefully many more tastings. Cheers! (Update 02 December 2022: downgrading this to a 3. My initial impressions were a bit off likely due to a combination of my celebratory mood and the cake I had prior to imbibing; my notes aren't off, I was just being kind because, well, don't we all feel a little kinder on our birthdays?)

Like Wood? I've heard of the heretofore believed to be mythical pencil shavings aroma/flavor in whiskey, but until now, I've not experienced it myself. But the wood is strong with this one, and you can see that, noting that, this might end up being a divisive taste. Granted I did read the review of this @cascode wrote last night prior to opening this bottle, so I may have been influenced by that, but then too, it says, Pencil Shavings on the back of the bottle, so one has to assume that, with it being this prominent everyone is getting it. I'm just a bit staggered at how much I like it. Method and Madness is a brand I've had my eye on for a while. They were well reviewed in Whisky Advocate, and while I don't necessarily put a whole lot of stock in everything they promote, the description of these sounded interesting, particularly the single pot still. The problem was that they seemed a bit expensive for what they were. Then the PA Wine and Spirits stores went buck wild with their clearance sale, marking a host of bottles down to 50% off, and these were in the mix. So, speaking honestly, I was never going to buy this single grain for $64.99, but at $32.49 (and with the single pot still $37.49 and the single malt $42.49), I went all in on these (in addition to buying 4 bottles of Teeling Blackpitts for $37.49 and 4 bottles of Alberta Premium Cask Strength at $24.99...they accidentally marked that down by 60% before realizing they'd messed up, but too bad, and yes, I'm trying to make you jealous a little bit). In any case, I opened the single grain first, with the understanding that it would be the least of the three, planning to work my way up. And wow! Just wow. In addition to the pencil shavings, which is the most prominent aroma, there's a very subtle and nice vanilla, honey and citrus, that makes the nose delightful, if you enjoy the pencil shavings (let's face it, I'm assuming this is like anchovies, you either love 'em or hate 'em). The flavor sits light on the tongue, with the pencil shavings as well as a bit of dry spice. They mention grapefruit on the bottle and there is a nice citric tang that carries over from the nose, and the finish itself is moderate in length with the spices carrying over. They mention mint on the bottle as well, and I can't say that I'm getting that, though who knows how this will develop over time. The bottle itself is beautiful too, and my only complaint is that the plastic wrap on the top was perforated, but it was hard to get a fingernail under so it took me two to three minutes work to get the damned thing open. Overall, I think it's a 3.75, but I'm bumping it up a quarter star because of how surprised I am at how much I like it. People in my state seem to be snatching up the other two and sleeping on this, but given how much I'm enjoying this first glass, I can see myself buying another bottle on clearance here. To me, this blows any other Irish whiskey in the below $40 category out of the water. Now, do I like it enough that I would have paid full price for a bottle had I known how much I'd enjoy it? No. $65 is still too much for this. But if you can nab it for less than $50, I'd say swing away.

I almost didn't buy this. Although admittedly, my first chance to buy this was during my shore vacation and it was $116 dollars, and I know that at home, when this comes in stock it's $99. Only it wasn't in stock at home yet, and I wasn't sure it would be, so I was tempted, but I laid off because of the early reviews I'd read on this site. You see, I loved the 2021 Cairdeas Pedro Ximenez. It was, in fact, one of my favorite whiskies I've ever had. And the initial reviews I saw on this site for Warehouse 1 were lukewarm. I get that, and I don't get it. The reason I get that is, this isn't as good as the 2021. The reason I don't get it is, this is a very Laphroaig Laphroaig. I am, to an extent, echoing what others have said, but I think this needs to be reiterated. Bottled at 104 proof, it's not quite as high strength as the 10 Year Cask Strength, yet it's a higher proof than the regular 10 year, and even though this doesn't have an age statement, it drinks like a higher proof version of the 10. Now I've never landed a bottle of the 10 Cask Strength yet, so I can't compare to that. But this has everything the 10 has in terms of nose and flavor. Iodine, Peat, Rubber, Tar, so if you like that, it baffles me why you wouldn't like this because here it's more intense and richer. The palate is similar providing a slight edge of vanilla honey coated sweetness on the back end with a long briny finish. I can't imagine you're drinking this if you don't like peated scotch. I can't imagine you're drinking this if this is your first Laphroaig. So again, I'm not sure where the low scores are coming from. I opened this last week in a tasting during a football game where my brother-in-law and dad were over my place. The tasting started with this, followed up with the Talikser Distillers Edition, followed that with Ardbeg Wee Beastie, and followed that with the Nikka from the Barrel. And you know what? All of them were amazing. But this was definitely the best of the lot, and that's a tall order with the Talisker Distiller's Edition in the mix. The DE was the 2021 Talisker, and that's an amazing dram, but this Cairdeas was fuller and richer. Didn't have the same sweetness, but made up for it with the intensity. As a side note, this was matured in Maker's Mark barrels, and I'm thinking that this is sort of like the Maker's 101 of the Laphroaig lineup. Not quite the Cask Strength, but adding a little umph to the standard bottling this likely falls in the middle. Naturally, until I have the Cask Strength, this is just conjecture. But my final verdict is: don't sleep on this. The lower scores than last year's make sense but only because last year's was phenomenal. If you like Islay, if you like peat, if you like Laphroaig, this dram's for you.

This may be the shortest review I write. I try to keep them short. It's just, you know, sometimes I get going, I get wordy. Four score and seven years ago...! Just kidding. Actually the Gettysburg Address isn't long either. I think it takes about two minutes to deliver. Back to the whiskey. My first experience with Kilbeggan was the Small Batch Rye. I can't remember why I bought it, but I saw it reviewed glowingly somewhere, and there were only a few bottles left in my area, so I picked it up. I opened it on Super Bowl Sunday, 2020, with the Chiefs playing the 49ers. I'd invited my parents over and my dad brought along a bottle of Aberlour A'bunadh my mom had gotten him for Christmas. Surprisingly, despite A'bunadh being the superior whisky, the Small Batch Rye held up next to it. It wasn’t quite as good, but it had a distinctive identity that made me remember it. And two years later, when it reappeared, I nabbed another two bottles, one for me, one for my pops. I purchased this Kilbeggan Single Pot Still via online order, not too long after that Super Bowl, during the pandemic. It had appeared on Whisky Advocate's Top 20 that previous year, and it was affordable, but I somehow found myself in no rush to open it. So in my collection it sat. I kept consider it, and never getting to it, until this past weekend, after football, with my brother-in-law, after we'd tasted a Laphroaig Cairdeas, a Talisker Distillers Edition, an Ardbeg Beastie, a Nikka From the Barrel, and a touch of Barrell Seagrass. It obviously wouldn't have been fair to rate the Kilbeggan Single Pot Still right then since it didn't stand a chance against those others, but I wasn't feeling it at all and figured I'd wait. Now, it's a few days later, and I'm tasting it again. And I have the same problems with it on its own that I had tasting it against the lineup. Here's the thing: it's very Irish. It's got the cereal grain and the apple and vanilla. Think Jameson or Tully on steroids. Don't think of other single pot stills. This is nothing like Redbreast, nothing like Green Spot. I'd even had to say, I prefer the candy coated cherry cough syrup flavor of the Busker to this. The problem is the apple flavor is not, like, a good apple flavor; it's like an apple that's off, and it struck me very quickly why that is. There's this underlying hit of talcum powder. And the underlying aroma reminds me of changing my kids' diapers right after they were born. If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. There's this brief period where the poop is a light brown smear on the diaper (or a gush that spills out the sides) rather than a real solid poop. And it doesn't smell the same way solid poop does. It's kind of mustardy. Still not necessarily something you want your whisky to smell like, but not entirely 100% revolting, and that underlying hit of talcum here also reminds me of that newborn mustard diarrhea scent. And it's killing me. Because I feel like I want to like this, but that underlying scent is holding me back. It follows through to the palate and disappears on the finish. So, at this point, Kilbeggan is batting 1 for 2 with me. They have a 19-Year around here that I'm considering. I haven't tried the standard run Kilbeggan either, but I don't think I'm going to. Honestly, this whole mustard baby poop thing really might just be me, but I can't escape it. I think I prefer the Jameson Barrel Finishes to this. I might even actually prefer your standard Jameson bottling if only to avoid the talcum. I know I said I planned to keep this short, and I'm sorry. It's just, you know, when I get going, I get...wordy. I probably just could have said, "Baby Diarrhea" and ended it there. But I felt like, because of the Small Batch Rye, I owed a bit more of an explanation.

I touched on this in my review of Barrell Seagrass, but I opened this bottle of Talisker Distiller's Edition the week prior to the Seagrass opening, and my first reaction to the Talisker, unlike the Seagrass, was, "Why do I ever drink anything else?" There are some whiskies where I wish Yankee Candle did a tie-in where I could buy a Talisker Distiller's Edition scented candle and burn it whenever I needed a little pick me up, whenever I was in a bad mood and needed a reason to smile. Other whiskies that spring to mind are the Dalwhinnie Game of Thrones edition where, even though the palate and finish were nothing to write home about, the nose was floral and honied in a way I've never encountered in another whisky. The Laphroaig Cairdeas of last year, finished in PX casks, was also one of those wish-I-had-a-candle-like-this noses. And the Laphroaig Cairdeas PX was the closest comparison I have for the Talisker Distiller's Edition. Both Islay and heavy with the peat and then finished in sherry casks. The main difference, of course, is the Cairdeas was 117 proof and this is 92. Also, this is my first Talisker. Up until tasting this I was a Talisker virgin. My love of Islay had mostly arisen from Ardbeg and Laprhoaig. I'd had the Lagavulin Distiller's Edition, which was also excellent (also my first Lagavulin; I still haven't had the regular 16) and the Kilchoman Machir Bay Cask Strength (also delightful and a really different beast for an Islay than anything else I'd had). But I'd never had Talisker. Now this year I've purchased a bottle of the 10 and a bottle of the Dark Storm (on clearance, $30 off), but I decided, having those two and this Distiller's Edition, to open the Distiller's Edition first. The allure is the sherry finish. I got the feeling that even though this is finished in Amoroso sherry and the Cairdeas was finishing in PX, that the profiles would be similar, and I'm not at all disappointed. The nose here has the peat smoke and fruitiness that comes with combining the two along with a nice undercurrent of toffee. There's a slight earthiness to it that's nice because it's just a trace and all the elements feel well balanced. Once it hits the tongue you get the sea salt along with peat and strawberry taffy, and it's just lovely. The finish is medium in length and allows the smoke, peat, and strawberry flavors to linger so that you want to just sip and sip. Like I've said, "Why do I ever drink anything else?" I also have a bottle of the Laphroaig 10 Sherry Finished that I haven't opened yet, and I'm kind of curious as to how it compares to the Talisker Distiller's Edition, but I just purchased this year's Larphaoig Cairdeas Warehouse 1, so that's likely on tap this weekend. I've seen around that the feeling on this year's Carideas is mixed but that might be a good thing, temper expectations, make me pleasantly surprised. My brother-in-law is joining us for the Eagle-Cardinals game and he loves Islay, particularly Talikser, so I think the lineup is going to be as follows (but don't tell him; he likes when I surprise him with a bunch of good whiskies in a row): 1. Laphroaig Warehouse 1; 2. Talisker Distiller's Edition; 3. Nikka from the Barrel (I feel like it's got some maritime notes that might be fun to compare with the Talisker); 4. Barrell Seagrass (which will be my "now for something completely different" pick; we'll give it another shot; I was lukewarm last week, but it might be a grower). It's gonna be a fun one!