Tastes

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 12, 2020 So I tried to get a new scotch that seemed highly recommended. I recall @cascode and @DigitalArc (and possibly others) thinking this was a contender. I thought that I succeeded. After looking it up on distiller, I find out I may have failed at succeeding. That is to say, I may not have grabbed what people typically mean when they say “Highland Park 12.” TBD! Nose has a very rich raisin note. I’ve said raisin before for sherry finished scotches, and I regret saying raisin previously for any scotch that isn’t this one. This is the real deal. Also fig, plum, grapes, Cabernet. Mostly raisin. Body is very sweet. Not just a flavor but a mouth feel too. Reminds me some of Glenmorangie, but less oily. The flavor on the body delivers on the nose notes. I get raisin, then Cabernet, then plum. I don’t love the mouth feel, but when I get past that, I like the flavors. Finish is really subtle. I’d say a hint of peat, some black pepper. Very fleeting. This is another solid, juicy scotch. I like it. I don’t currently see a place in my life long-term for this bottle, because I have other bottles now that I would argue provide more bang for the buck IMO. Nonetheless, I would never turn down a pour of this, and I am interested in other Highland Park offerings. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 11, 2020 This is 9 year old Tennessee bourbon finished in French Oak red wine barrels for a 18 months. Overall big fan of Bardstown, with a big letdown from Destillare. Hoping for a comeback story with this one. Nose is nose hair singing. This is hot. There’s grapes, raisin, sugar, ice cream. It’s on fire, but it’s delicious. Body hits gentler than expected in mouth feel. In flavor, there’s a heavy oak wall, higher than you’d expect for a 9-year bourbon. Get past it, and you’re rewarded. There’s lemon, fruit punch, sangria, cherry. This is delicious. Finish is gentle. There’s lingering sugars, but also tannins and a hint of cherry. There’s a nice buzz, and some cinnamon. Like most red wine finished bourbons, you can find that almond aftertaste, but the other flavors are too rich to make that a dominant finish note. This drink is phenomenal. It’s the best red wine finish I’ve ever had. And yet... it’s still not my favorite bardstown. They nailed this one out of the park, as they often do. It’s a bourbon for red wine lovers, finished bourbon fans, and anyone open to something new and well crafted. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 10, 2020 A little over a year ago I bought this bottle with the unapologetic intent to treat it like currency. I confess, I haven’t always been one of the good guys. For some reason, this never happened, and tonight, there it was—sitting behind a few store picks I’ve been working on, with a giant number 10 on it. It was asking for it. If it’s the kind of thing that interests you, here’s the specifics: Barrel #: 5008669 Aged Since: 02/06 Nose is amazing. It’s gentle, but full of classic bourbon notes. Sugar, caramel, lemon, honey. Then chocolate, cinnamon, red delicious apples. The lack of astringency really lets you get some time with it, and there’s no dominant scent muting out the others. Body is hotter than I expected given that gentle nose. I’m getting chiefly dessert on this body. Heavy chocolate and caramel. Leather. Sugar too, but mostly the chocolate. Finish has something I don’t love, and it’s something I’ve always struggled with explaining. It’s somewhere between licorice and latex rubber, and it’s always ruined Russell’s Reserve products for me. Once I notice it, it’s hard to ignore. Luckily, it’s a minor note here, as there’s also cinnamon and vanilla on the tail of this one. This finish is also relatively long for a bourbon, and I don’t hate that. Overall, this dram has a special feel to it. I know that may sound dumb, but something about the color and the legs and a promising nose made me objectively excited when I picked up this glass. $200 bourbons can lack it, and $30 bourbons can have it. It’s an X factor, and this one has it. I have no love nor hatred for the Rebel Yell brand (and this isn’t in my top 20), but I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. This is nothing like the RY standard issue nor the RY100. The jump in quality from that main line to this upper tier is one of the more remarkable instances of this phenomenon in the bourbon world. I’d highly recommend bourbon fans hunt the shelves for this one if you haven’t already done so, and I’m happy I withdrew this one from the ATM. It is currency no more. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 9, 2020 Gaps in knowledge. For 7 years of my life I thought Bolleyball was a sport. For 10 years of my life I thought the word was pronounced “ex-specially.” For 21 years of my life I thought my mother pronounced “acorn” like a normal person. Point is: I’ve missed some seemingly obvious things before. So when a good friend of mine who enjoys making me suffer gave me this whisky, somehow I have for quite some time thought this whisky was a bourbon. And likely a bad one, because (again) my friend enjoys making me suffer. It wasn’t until I saw @ContemplativeFox bring it up as a blended scotch that I realized what I was sitting on. Thanks! Nose is fresh grass, orange. There’s some Granny Smith apples in there when you swirl. Big fan of this nose. Body is syrupy sweet orange. Not a great iteration of it. It’s a lite beer version of Delsym. It’s okay. Finish is a burst of baking spices. I like the way it explodes. Cinnamon, nutmeg, occasional cocoa. I think I still have some work to do when it comes to expectations with scotch. I more or less have a level of expectation going into any unknown bourbon based on distillery, source, age, etc. This whisky isn’t bad, but for me it’s tough to put in on the same playing field as some of the others I’ve been having lately. When you’ve recently had better iterations of all of these notes, what do you do with that? Perhaps that comes with the territory of blended scotch? I like this whisky. It’s nose and finish are my favorite parts. And I’m pleasantly surprised that my friend was in fact giving me a decent, enjoyable scotch. He must be losing his touch. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 8, 2020 The Whiskey Barons Collection. If you’re a bourbon fan who enjoys the history of bourbon, you should read up on these guys. There’s ancestor worship, there’s reaching back into the bourbon days of yore, and restoring old homes of dead guys with recognizable names. All the things. This is the fourth and most recent release in this collection. I was a big fan of the Bond & Lillards, and I hope this delivers. Nose is sweet tarts. There’s powdered sugar, citrus, oak, apple, jelly... swirl it around, there’s tons of stuff there. Body is pears, flowers, vanilla. Weird-ass combo. Wondering if you’d like that? So am I. Finish is almost too sweet at times. The pear and cane sugar can come for a vengeance when you breathe wrong, and in those moments the mild cinnamon (which I would normally like) is a deterrent in your efforts to survive. Sickeningly sweet... which is rare in the bourbon world. This is a huge letdown for me. It’s passable, although overpriced as a 375mL. I was wondering why B&L flew off the shelf while this one is still available. I’ve had many worse things, but I wouldn’t recommend this to a friend. This bums me out because these “Whiskey Barons” produced Bond & Lillard 2, which was great but slightly fell short of the even more magnificent OG Bond & Lillard 1, and now I have to square that with the fact that they made this. I haven’t had Old Ripy yet, but now I’m scared to. 2/3 is such a better track record than 2/4, and even if I’m late to the party, I’m going to maintain my own version of reality for as long as possible. Maybe I’ll crack that one next year. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 7, 2020 This scotch was recommended by @ContemplativeFox Cheers! I want to contribute to the discussion of this fine whisky whilst simultaneously recognizing that the majority of people likely to interact with this post are substantially more well-versed in scotch than I am. Ergo: fun fact time. Think you know Loch Lomand? 1) The design of the Lomond still does not originate from Loch Lomond Distillery. Both Glenburgie and Miltonduff had Lomond stills before Loch Lomond Distillery was a thing. 2) From wiki: “Loch Lomond is also the name of a fictional brand of Scotch whisky consumed by Captain Haddock in Hergé's famous comics series The Adventures of Tintin. Despite the name, the whisky has no connection to the real-world Loch Lomond distillery.” 3) Loch Lomond is the only distillery in Scotland capable of producing both Single Malt and grain whisky at the same time. Three... is enough. Nose has grain, but I couldn’t get much else. Then, I let it sit for about 20 minutes just to see what would happen, and I swear I’m getting honey and tangerine when I swirl my glass now. Body is phenomenal. I really like this. Juicy and sweet from the first instant, with honey, sugar, orange, sweetened grapefruit. It reminds me of that goop they package mandarin oranges in that you always want to drink but can’t because diabetes. I actually meant that as a compliment. Finish has a minuscule amount of smoke. It’s there, but I would never consider this peaty. There’s a nice roof-of mouth buzz that carrries butterscotch, orange jelly, and baking spices. This is one hell of a hidden gem for me. Anytime I find something new that is affordable and readily available like this little guy, it makes me want to rethink the layout of my whiskey shelf. In bourbon terms, I think I may have found my Scottish EH Taylor. I already know this lacks the depth of other scotches, and this will likely not be one of my top 5 scotches in the long run, but in one-trick-pony lingo: I like the trick. And like EHT, it’s affordable, I can find it, and I doubt it would ever disappoint me. One parting question to scotch people: if my goal is to understand “highland scotch” as a thing, do I need to look elsewhere? I read that this may be more in the spirit of lowland scotches, latitude be damned! ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 6, 2020 I wanted to grab a whisky from the lists @Jan-Case and @PBMichiganWolverine provided, but of all those whiskies recommended, there was literally only one on the shelf at my go-to-place. This store does an exceedingly good job getting bourbons, including the allocated stuff, but I’m realizing the scotch section is actually pretty small. Supply and demand in Indiana, I suppose? There are about half as many scotches available as there are rye whiskies, and there are at least 5 times as many bourbons. I think they may actually have more Japanese options than scotches, though most of them are locked up. Despite the odds, I was able to find this one scotch, a recommendation from @Jan-Case. Cheers! Also, I somehow already had a beautiful scotch glass from this distillery, and I have no idea how this happened. Nose is faint. I’m having trouble with this one. It’s still grassy and sweet, so I’d say raisin and grain. Slight vanilla. Body has cane sugar, caramel. It’s absurdly sweet. Desert sweet. Finish hits with cinnamon and smoke. That cinnamon actually reminds me of bourbon, but an odd peat rising at the end (odd if this were a bourbon, that is). This is strange. Nose of a Balvenie/Glenlivet, which I googled to discover they were both Speyside, body and finish of a low-heat bourbon with peat mixed in. I dig it. This was from the Isle of Islay region, and I’m just starting to realize the relevance of this information when tasting scotches. I had always assumed this was a bourbon vs Tennessee whiskey territorial thing, but I’m reading that there’s a good deal more to it than that. Luckily (through genuine dumbass luck) the 4 scotches I recently bought come from 4 different regions. I’ve now tried Speyside, Islands, and Islay. Tomorrow will be Highlands! ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 5, 2020 So last night over Xbox, I was telling my wiser-but-far-less-well-endowed friend that bourbon has a greater range of flavors and more intensity of flavor than scotch. He told me I was high. I wasn’t. He then said something very insightful: “I think you’ve just trained your palate to see past the wood notes in bourbon, opening up the flavors. That charred oak influence doesn’t exist in scotch, but the way they manipulate grain and peat is kind of like how bourbon distilleries manipulate barrel aging. Until you get used to that, the grain and the peat is all you’re going to taste.” I’m paraphrasing, but you may recognize one of the two reasons I call him my wiser-but-far-less-well-endowed friend. I’m going to spend more time on scotch to see what I can figure out. If only there were a generous community of knowledgeable scotch drinkers to recommend some new scotches for me. ‘Preciate y’all! This was a recommendation from @cascode Cheers! Nose is delicious. There’s smoked meat, sea salt, embers. I’m grilling on the beach. That body was unexpected. Very thick and oily. Up front is heavy whipping cream. Milk chocolate. Butter. Sugar. There’s a hard left turn halfway through the body, and the sweetness begins to turn on your tongue to salty and savory notes, even before you swallow. That finish though. Beef jerky, a spicy cigar, rauchbier. It lingers with you for about 3 minutes. I timed it. Longer if you’re a mouth breather. This is a fun one. I have experienced smoked flavors before with Connemara, but I don’t think I’ve ever had something jump from sweet to salty like that mid sip. That chocolate and cream is also new—something I’ve often found in a bourbon yet never found in a scotch. Unfortunately, the novelty wears off during the drink, and toward the end of a 3 finger pour there was a peat buildup that made the sweet flavors hard to detect. I think it would be a waste to pour another one of these tonight, but I’m actually really excited to pour another one tomorrow, perhaps after trying a new scotch from Islay. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!

It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6! Dec. 4, 2020 I come into this drink tonight with a great deal of humility. I consider myself a bourbon aficionado who’s scotch-curious. I remember when every bourbon I drank existed only as a comparison piece to Four Roses SiB, the first bourbon I tasted neat. It took a lot of time for me to understand bourbon as an abstract concept, within which all bourbons I try now can be judged independently using a finite set of flavor profiles and descriptive language that makes sense to me. On the other hand, to my palate all scotch is still either “Balvenie” or “not Balvenie.” I have a long way to go. But I’m trying something brand new in that field tonight thanks to a recommendation from @Ctrexman Cheers! Nose is fresh grass, peanuts. It’s gentle, slightly bitter. I was not expecting that. The body is one of the juiciest whiskies I’ve ever tried. And I think that’s less of a flavor and more of a mouth feel. I’m tasting a mild orange flavor, hops, and a bitterness—a combo that kind of reminds me of an IPA. Finish has cane sugar. It’s a quick burst and it dissipates, though a pleasant lip and mouth buzz continue after the flavor drops. There’s raspberry jelly there somehow. Is that a tobacco aftertaste 5 minutes later? Holy cow that was delayed. I like this whisky. It would do a good job scratching that scotch itch that hits me from time to time. It’s not Balvenie. I’m having trouble detecting the influence of rum that I was expecting based on bourbons finished in rum casks, and perhaps that cane sugar finish is where it’s at. Scotch defenders: hit me with a flavor to hunt for in this whisky. I want to understand scotch better than I do. ‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!