Tastes

Best whisky in the world. An epic rye. I saw it on the bourbon menu of a local bbq place and I had to try it. Wow. Wow. Wow. How can such a punchy dram be so beguiling? The nose is sweet and buttery, yet floral; the colour deep amber. The palate has vast alcoholic oomph delivered with a honeyed sweetness and finished with a sly spicy warmth. Ooh, and cinnamon peanut brittle somehow. Little Boom achieves balance by being perfectly weighted on every axis, and altogether huge and satisfying. I feel bolstered for my bike ride home in the snow. Thanks Bookers!

Some whiskies strike me quite differently with every dram. Hakushu DR is one of them. It’s pale, with a piney, faintly smoky aroma like toned-down Oude Genever. The palate is malt-forward, then oily, sweet and fruity, with a medium-length finish that recalls damp turf over peat. When I’m feeling as if I don’t really love Scotch malt (gasp!), I don’t much like this. In a Scotch-friendly phase, I think it’s quite fine. Never a favourite though.

I am grateful to Jim Murray for challenging me to try Northern Harvest by calling it the Best Whisky in the World. It started me on an odyssey through Canadian drams that continues to make me very happy. After four bottles of NH, I can say that one was sublime, two were great, and one was so-so. At its best, NH is somehow delicate, crunchy, aromatic and spicy all at once. This bottle has a lovely sweet banoffee aroma with a palate to match - the biscuity base comes through especially nicely. Sipping on it’s light, not syrupy, but still toasty and delicious with a long finish of baking spices. The best bottle of NH I’ve finished really was among the best on a shelf of 50-odd from Scotland, Canada, Japan and the USA. And it is unquestionably FABULOUS value.

I love Canadian whisky and this is one of the very best. Creme brûlée is an inviting nose, but it hardly hints at the richness of the first taste. Although it seems almost syrupy in its density, the sweetness and spice are in fact perfectly balanced. As the flavour unravels, it’s as nutty, creamy and luscious as a tongue-coating, artery-furring, soul-pleasing banoffee pie - with alcohol! There is literally nothing not to love about this, from the smart blue label to the warm, honeyed finish. Well done G&W!

This is a tasty, punchy whisky alright. The Demerara flavour is more suggestive of bourbon than rye at first taste, but then the astringent spice of cloves and later drying black licorice come through on the finish. The proof is unequivocal too, backing up the chunky palate. Not to be trifled with.

This is a pleasant whisky, but it’s hard to understand what it was doing all those years cooped up in oak. Butterscotch on the nose prepares you for the sweet, buttery taste, reminiscent of honey toast. There’s something high and sharp there too, like pear drops or turps, followed by a gentle vanilla thrum to close. There are better Canadians out there for the money.

A lot of NAS duty free specials are rubbish, frankly, a reflection of global demand for Scotch outpacing the time required by maturing in barrels. This one is very fine (and extremely strong). 57%, but nicely balanced with the help of a few drops of water: a pleasant, gentle whiff of smoke to start, golden syrup on the first taste, with a long, salty, peaty finish. The label says ‘made by the sea’, which is precisely right. Unless you demand a peat monster like Lagavulin or Laphroaig, this is a delightful dram. Give it a try.

When I saw the expert score I thought it must be a typo. Booker makes fantastic bourbon, so even a blend is unlikely to score less than, say, Famous Grouse. Well, it’s not a typo but it is a mistake. This blend of American and Canadian whiskies somehow brings the best of both to the table: the rich Demerara of bourbon with the voluptuous spice of long-aged rye. It’s sumptuously smooth despite checking in near 60% alcohol, and gives a long, warm, rich finish. This is a combination that needn’t work-Alberta’s Dark Horse tries to marry rye and bourbon and it ends up a mess-but Booker’s Noe Simple Task has managed to hit the perfect blend. Don’t mind the expert; take a chance and enjoy!

It’s fruity, almost winey, right from the off. At 60% - SIXTY PERCENT! - it’s boozy too, on the nose. It really needs several drops of water; it’s just too much otherwise. Even then it’s a massive burst of dark red fruit, alcohol and chocolate, with a gentle thrum of malt underlying. The rich wine flavour clings to your tongue for ages afterwards. This is perhaps the fruitiest, most bumptious Scotch I’ve ever had. Don’t underestimate it. Do buy it.

Having biked from BC down to Idaho through Spokane and then the rolling wheat fields of the Palouse, I jumped at the chance to buy a local whisky, more or less, with a most unusual mash bill. It languishes near the bottom of my Distiller list of 40-odd bottles thanks to its modest expert rating, but I like it a lot. Then again, I love buttered honey toast, so that’s not surprising. Sure it’s a bit one-dimensional - it’s a single grain American whisky - but what it does, it does well.