Tastes

Lots of apple and honey and more noticeable smoke on the nose than the 12yr version. The cereal is also very noticeable, with the slightly dark floral notes and a hint of toffee. The sherry influence is fairly subtle with only slight fruit notes coming through the honey and smoke. All in all, the nose is fairly short. Just like the 12, the smoke is much more prominent than the nose would suggest. The sweetness is less present as well, with the smoke being slightly charred and salty. There is a slight seaweed quality to the middle of the palate, which is replaced by some earthy notes that flirt with being fruity. I have seen mushrooms listed as a tasting note, and I could see this middle note being what I'm finding there. There is an interesting minty quality behind the earthiness that keeps the palate from being too salty or too dark, while still keeping some of the fruity elements. The smoke turns slightly ashy but more peppery and less dry than the 12yr. The finish is not particularly long and ultimately is slightly minty with a fair amount of cereal. Just like the 12, it leaves me feeling like I smoked a cigar an hour ago, albeit with less of a mouth-watering quality to it. I actually prefer the 12yr in the end, although this is by no means a dissatisfying experience.

Honey is the predominate note on the nose, with a ton of other elements weaving in and out of it. Vanilla and floral notes form the second-layer, with a peppery quality lurking behind that. Some citrus notes never fully came into focus, and there is a hint of cereal and heather that teases right at the end. The sherry influence is obvious but the nose is not overwhelmingly sweet and the longer it sits the more brine comes out on the nose. The palate is such a surprise. Peat smoke shows up predominantly and unexpectedly, fighting aside any sweetness from the nose and bringing more wood with it than the nose would suggest was possible. The brine also comes to the fore and initially lends the smoke a salted meat quality. As the long finish progresses, the smoke turns slightly ashy even as apple and the honey-heather-cereal note from the nose makes a bit of an appearance. The finish is pretty long, with the whisky coating the mouth and that slightly ashy taste leaving me with memories of an hour after smoking a cigar. Throughout the taste there was an element of orange that never quite settled in one place or even particularly came into focus. For not generally being a fan of sherry influence on Scotch this really hits the sweet spot for me, mainly due to the sherry influence being really muted on the palate while still providing some great spicy fruit notes on the nose. Despite the fact that I really can't put a firm finger on any of the notes, this is easily my favorite Scotch and the first whisky I've rated a 5, which for me means something I would actively miss if it goes away and that I always want to have a bottle of.

A bit of caramel, cream, and vanilla oak with an interesting, dusty oat note underneath. There is some sweet notes of apples with some faint cinnamon. The palate is really smooth, with the apple spice sweetness and oak forming the foundation. There is a flash of bright fruits, particularly raspberry, before it darkens up with molasses and some char rolling in to tamp down the sweeter elements. The oak and barrel notes finish the experience, with the worn used oak and the new oak bouncing off each other to see which one can have the last word. Ultimately the worn, slightly dry oak has the last breath as the apple and vanilla also give one last appearance.

Some friends and I did a budget bourbon blind flight and this was universally picked as the worst of the flight. No one cared for it. My notes were "Almost marshmallow but a lot of hot wood covering that up. Leaves a young wood and ethanol taste at the finish."

Vanilla and oak on the nose. Tiny bit of caramel beneath, can be a bit heavy on the alcohol if you're not careful. There is a pretty noticeable apple juice lurking behind everything else. The notes have an interesting aspect of smelling like they're coming from something frozen or coming out of a freezer. It's not bad, just lends the nose a slightly watered down element while also smelling like it's super chilled. Hard to explain. The first taste is almost overwhelmingly salted peanuts in the shell. The salt and a bit of heat is hard to get past to detect anything else. The apple juice is clearly present just behind the salted peanuts with the sweet fruit taking the edge off the salt eventually. You're left with a fairly juicy note that sees some caramel creep in as the salt fades just enough to leave you picturing apple slices drizzled with salted caramel. On subsequent tastes the cycle basically repeats itself, just with slightly more oak being noticeable, particularly in the middle. The intense salty peanut quality stands up really well to coke (if you've never poured some salted peanuts into an ice cold coke and then drank it, you really should) but the price is just high enough for me to not go out of my way to get it just for mixing when it's not dynamic enough to drink neat--it just lands in a no-man's land space of price/enjoyment for me.

This has a nice rounded nose. Oak with a dark, subtle vanilla greets you at first, and there is some cherry trying to fight through that never fully gets realized before turning into a nice maple syrup. The first thing I noticed when I tasted it was how incredibly easily it went down. The only other whiskey I've had go down as neatly was Blanton's. Despite being 91 proof, there isn't much of an edge and the bourbon flavor profile shines through clearly. It hits all the classic bourbon notes: cherry and leather, which has a hint of tobacco for a second, and sweet oak. There is some saltiness under the sweetness before the finish that gets slightly nutty. That ultimately turns into a nice caramel-vanilla-oak with a medium length finish. A drop of water gave all the flavors a megaphone to stand out a little more while rounding them off a bit more as well. This is a perfect introductory bourbon or a great anytime dram that will play nice regardless of what mood you're in. I originally mistook it for their US*1 American Whiskey, which is aged in used oak barrels because of how rounded everything was (and because the menu I ordered off of wasn't totally clear which one it was). I bought a bottle of this after thinking I had tried the American Whiskey US*1 and it turns out what I had at the restaurant was the bourbon. Really blown away by how rounded everything was despite still being aged in new oak barrels.

The nose was strongly reminiscent of apple cider vinegar with some melon and a bit of char, with some very mild cereal and honey. The taste was sweet, clear spring water that blooms into honey, vanilla, and apple, with just enough spice and barrel notes to turn the refreshing sweetness into something a little more challenging and demanding of your attention. This was similar to a lot of Irish whiskey I've tried, but much neater and more natural tasting. I wasn't wowed by it, but it was pleasant enough.

The nose is oatmeal shortbread with a little bit of cream and honey. Oak and caramel apple (like at Halloween) is fairly strong at the end of the nosing. This is really sweet on the taste, too sweet for me in a way that reminded me of simple syrup and only gives a little ground to the apple and honey. The interesting oatmeal on the nose is missing and this just tastes like a fairly generic Irish. The finish gets a little bit darker and I think I can begin to see the stout-influence but then it's over. I had this with a bit of a spicy meal, so that may have obscured some virtues of it, but I was really disappointed with this.

There is a ton of vanilla on the nose, very noticeable even though you can't stay in the glass too long. There's also a caramel sweetness that reminded me of taffy and a bit of oak underneath. It should be no surprise, but this whiskey kicks. On the first taste I got nothing but salted peanuts in the shell. I got a hint of cherry lurking on the edges before the heat rolled in. Second taste wasn't nearly as overwhelming and had more oak and vanilla with a creamy-char sweetness that I couldn't put my finger on but tasted like something nostalgic. A couple drops of water cools the dram down and brings out the barrel notes while tamping the sweetness down. The cherry becomes more muddled with other dark fruits and the salted peanuts return on the finish and linger for awhile.

Another formal taste after the bottle had been opened for a year (rebottled into a 375mL before finishing it off). You can see my initial taste on my profile, and this one will focus on what I found different. The nose had more vanilla and creme brûlée than I remembered, with caramel and baking spices. After drinking some, the nose developed a pleasant marshmallowy note. The palate was more citrusy, but darker than the nose would suggest. The creme brûlée showed up tempered with the wood notes and slight barrel char to mix with the rye spice. The finish was fairly long and full of the marshmallow cream, slightly herby in an interesting way, and ultimately highlighted the barrel notes.