Tastes

Tasted on 2/21/21 N- Smoky oak tannins with ripe cherry. P- Rich creamy mouth feel. Vanilla, buttery caramel with cherry and dark dried fruit. F- Very dry and astringent. A finish very much like Redbreast 12. Dry like a very dry white wine. The normal fruit forward Glenmorangie notes are absent here. The painful unsatisfying finish almost makes this pour a hard pass. Almost. The nose and splendid mouth feel rescues this "not available in US" bottle. Lots of people love RB12 so this might be the ideal pour for some. If you can find it at a special import shop or through a vendor that specializes in such, this is a worthwhile bottle to try. A friend of mine ordered it from Europe and I am very glad he shared with me.

Very sweet. The nose reminds me of cooking caramel in a copper pot. A friend gave me a sample. I wouldn't buy it, but I am not mad about it.

Virginia ABC Single Barrel Store Pick. 46% ABV. Non-Chill Filtered. No added color. Finished in 1st fill Buffalo Trace Bourbon Casks. Color- Light Straw N - Stone fruit, apple, light alcohol, vanilla, faint smoke but no peat. P - Very leggy in the glass. Oily creamy mouth feel. Very buttery on the lips. Flavors of light fruit and apple jelly. F- Long spicy finish of baking spices especially allspice notes. Bright fresh cracked black and white peppercorns. Great lingering after taste. This specific bottle will be more difficult to find away from Virginia, but Speyburn is supposed to release these picks across the country through various ABC systems and stores. It is very light and flavorful for those who prefer less smoky and unpeated Scotch. The bourbon notes really shine in this NAS offering. I first had a pour of this for breakfast on a coastal fishing trip over a year ago. This is so fruity and approachable it is hard to pass up at the $40 price. I have never had the standard 10 yr so I don't know how it compares...but this is a winner.

I venture again into another of the big Irish labels. Produced by Middleton, this is the basic offering in the "original" packaged tall bottle with gold medalion/shield around it's neck. Light honey in color. N - light alcohol, earthy "hogo-like" funk that caught me by surprise, light spice and burned sugar. Almost like making caramel on the stove top. P - Warmed honey, lemony citrus, spice. Only slightly leggy with light oily mouth feel. F - Warm slightly sweet, lemony spice, no trace of the earthy funk in flavor or finish. I took my original notes on the neck pour. I have now killed about 1/3 of the bottle. I have found a great deal of favor in this bottle. I like all of the flavors and the balance. I have spent time exploring Irish bottles since the lockdown began. I used to think Irish was a one or two note chord and kind of boring. Either sweet and fruit, (Bushmiills) or Dry and biscuit-ty (Jameson). I have now discovered some flavor and diminsion in my travels. Powers Gold is very good. The funky aroma in the nose startled me at first, but after the neck pour it faded away. There is a lot to like here. I am leaning towards 3.75 stars now that the funk is out of the nose. If I could nose and taste Redbreast 12 with a Powers Gold finish, that would be Irish bliss! Cheers!

N - Pear, light fruit, ethanol. Very light nose. P - Fruit, caramel, malt, vanilla F - Crisp, short, astringent and unpleasantly dry??? Adding water created a very creamy mouthfeel. This Limited Edition is very good but it is a puzzle. The light nose and delicate fruit flavors are dominated by the very dry finish. It reminds me of a very dry white wine finish. However, the rich mouthfeel and the abundance of flavors is enough to buy a pour, or split a bottle with someone. I can't really recommend for $100 plus unless you are maintaining the LE collection. Thanks to JWSparta for sharing a pour from your extended Glenmorangie LE collection. Cheers.

Since I am fairly new to the world of Irish, I look at things a little more binary. A better dram or a lesser dram. I could not wait to try the Redbreast12 after hearing so many good things about it and reading so many good reviews. I usually will not take a flyer on a 60 plus dollar bottle unless I'm fairly certain it's going to be a winner. The Redbreast 12 year is just short of fantastic. However, the short knocks it down quite a bit from what it could be. The nose on this would-be gem is so fantastic that I could nose it for hours. Apple brandy, dark fruit, especially figs, dark brown sugar, baking spice, fresh sliced apples, apple cider. All the aromas I love. It is very leggy in the glass but does not have a super viscous mouthfeel. Vanilla, dried fruits, baking spices, and the return of dark brown sugar from the nose lands in the palate with apple pie or apple with a cobbler crust. This is where things make an incredible wrong turn. The warm medium to long finish is absolutely obstructed by it's overwhelming astringency. I had hoped that maybe this was a symptom of a neck pour and gave the bottle a few pours and some time to open up. Unfortunately, all the positives remain as well as the one glaring negative. I just cannot understand how such a fantastic dram could finish so dry and astringent. All it needs is a touch of sweetness and a bit of crispness to satisfy and it would rival 4.5 to 4.75 stars. I do not drink sweet beverages and I am sensitive to sweet. Given that, I am afraid others might find this even more painfully dry. Sadly 3.25 Stars instead of 4.25 given the finish and the price point. If the bars and pubs EVER open back up, I will sample some other upper tier Irish first before dropping coin on the 750.

For the longest time I figured myself a Glenlivet guy with a few visits off the reserve to The Macallan. Either my tastes have evolved or I never gave Glenmorangie it's proper due to begin with. I need to look back at several reviews and see if this might be valid. I think it might be the fruitiness and absence of the smoky notes Glenmorangie offers that apeals to me. A Tale Of Cake continues their goodness. N - Tart fruit with almost a cider vinegar aroma. P - Sweet Cherries, pear, apricot, vanilla with spicy back of mouth heat. Adding water significantly reduced flavors. F - Medium to long with rich dark fruit flavors. Solid 4 stars.

I had this again over the weekend. After a day of fishing with great friends in the Little River Inlet, and after an agreeable meal with dessert, this was fantastic! I love it! I plan to purchase back-ups since its a LE. Thankfully its not for everyone.

I picked this bottle up several months ago and I am now over halfway through it. I really like Bernheim so I thought I would give this a try to compare after hearing such good reviews. N - Ethanol, a pleasant chemical aroma, malt and vanilla. P - Dark fruit, citrus, spice, slight top of mouth heat. Vanilla candy without the sweetness. F - Medium-short astringent finish. A bit of a bitter and lasting aftertaste comes in after the finish. This is overall a good dram. It has lots of richness and diminsion. It coats the mouth well and is leggy and viscous. The only question is value. At $40, it seems a bit overpriced. However, there are very limited options for true wheat whiskeys. Given all this, I prefer the Bernheim. It has a 7 yr age statement and a sale price in NC of $25. It is also a bit more lively in the flavor department. WR Wheat is different enough that if Bernheim wasn't quite for you, then this is worth a flyer.

For blended Scotch, I pretty much alternate between Cutty Sark and The Famous Grouse. I'm not a real fan of Dewars or Johnnie Walker. While the price difference between Cutty and FG is about $6, the difference in taste and texture is greater than that. Cutty has delicious fruit flavors, heavy with crisp pear. Unfortunately, it has smoke and a bit of peat that sometimes overwhelms the light flavors. I am not a fan of peat. The FG has much less smoke and and no real peat. But, its flavor spectrum is much more narrow and lacks crisp fruit flavors. If the FG is on sale when my bottle is empty, I will generally buy it and use it as a mixer with soda or ginger in the summertime for a cool refreshing highball. My rating is the same for both due to price. If CS was $24, I would definitely pass. If The FG was $18, I would buy it and live with its astringent thin taste without much complaint. Speyburn 10 yr is light and refreshing and only $30 in NC. As rare as I drink a blended scotch high ball, I think I might just buy that in lieu for $6 more. N - Alcohol, malt, toasted bread, slight smoke. P - Light and crisp, toasted bread and biscuits cooked over a campfire, light fruit, but overall a bit thin. F - Short, crisp, dry astringent finish. Overall not offensive, but not a lot there either. It is so hard to believe that this is overwhelmingly a favorite in many areas of Scotland...What a puzzle.