Tastes

My recent Teeling tasting jumped from the first Revival release to this fourth edition, which likewise leads with stone fruits on the nose. Each sip delivers tinned peaches in cream with a sprinkling of white pepper. The finish is likewise long on cream and fruit with more pepper. Delightful.

Irish whiskey is known for its fruity flavors and they are turned up to 11 in this release sourced from the Cooley distillery. Apricots and peaches on the nose develop in the mouth into juicy stone fruits mingled with a delightful spice. The finish is long and spicy. I typically find rum cask maturations too sweet or sickly, but this one tastes more like it was drawn from a peach juice container. Really good.

My sample comprised spirit aged for four to five years, half drawn from first-fill ex-bourbon casks with a quarter each from virgin American oak and ex-Oloroso sherry. Flavorwise, It delivers melting vanilla ice cream and white pepper on the nose, a fruity palate and a lightly spicy finish. A step up from Teeling Small Batch.

I’m not a big connossiour of Irish whisky and have been underwhelmed by Teeling’s distillate at festivals but a recent opportunity to taste some of their vintage sourced whiskies alongside their core range was too good to pass up. First up was their small batch ex-rum cask whisky, which comprises 25% malted whisky and 75% grain, aged for four to seven years. The nose is like a banana creme brulee, which is always a good thing in my books. There are more bananas and cream on the palate along with tinned fruit, tangerines, weak tea and a light spice. The finish is lightly sweet with a hint of spice. A decent drop but not one that’s going to change my drinking habits.

Starts creamy before developing a decent spicy bite mid-palette. There’s a note like a vanilla wafer. Soft and creamy finish. Another excellent whisky from G&W and great value at under $50 a bottle.

When I said I was going to review Johnnie Walker Red for my 500th tasting note, I neglected to mention that the bottle in question dates from the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. I don’t know if the numbers at the start of the tax strip reading 61966 imply a date, but if they do then it was bottled two months before I was born. Anecdotal evidence from my girlfriend’s father — who gladly let me take this bottle and several other vintage spirits from his garage — also suggests it’s from around that year. Dusties are always fun but in my experience disappoint more often than not. Evaporation, stopper degradation and unrealistic expectations that whisky was always better in the old days frequently combine to leave you underwhelmed. And then sometimes you strike gold. As soon as I removed the perfectly functioning screw-top from this fully filled bottle, a waft of beautiful sherry flavors rushed for freedom. Rich, creamy toffee, with just a hint of smoke. Sherry casks are a luxury nowadays, but when this whisky was blended they were often the default for the industry. Still, I was not expecting the aroma to be so beautiful. It brought to mind nothing less than a 26-year-old Glenrothes I hand bottled from a single sherry cask at the Whisky Exchange last year. I’m not a fan of heavily sherried whiskies, but when they’re dialed down to the caramel zone of that Glenrothes and this Johnnie Walker then I’m in heaven. So the nose was amazing, but surely that was just a fluke. This is Red Label after all - it had to be largely grain whisky, even back then, and there would be no hiding that once the whisky was in my mouth. Color me confounded. Maybe they had run out of grain that month, but for some reason this drinks almost as well as that Glenrothes. The creamy toffee and smoke of the nose continue in the mouth and the 43.4% ABV delivers a luscious, oily texture. I’ve spent three nights searching this whisky for off notes and the best I can come up with is a hint of something sharp in the middle and a finish that comes up a little short. And it’s not particularly complex - one sip tastes pretty much the same as the next. But really I’m struggling to find anything bad to say about it. This is pure drinking pleasure. In fact, I’m left with the conclusion that this is a fake: someone has refilled an old Red Label bottle with expensive whisky. Dusty hunters, beware.

This is the second time I have tried a Bunnahabhain finished in casks that once held fortified Marasla wine, but whereas the previous one was bottled after 13 years this one was distilled 30 years before it was put into glass, back in the era of the Thatcher government. The younger version was a peated malt that I rated 4.0 and good value at its original price of $80. This version is unpeated and will set you back 450 pounds a bottle, a price that has meant you can still order one from the distillery despite an outturn of only 1,260 bottles. My share from a bottle split yielded a pour with a lovely musty nose containing aromas of white grapes and cola. It’s sweet and oily on first sip, with dried apricots making an appearance amid the flavors, just as they did in the younger version. There’s a long, dry finish rich in tannins and a nice funky aftertaste. Very good, but not a patch on the whisky I will discuss for tasting #500: Johnnie Walker Red Label.

Like the lower proof releases from the distillery, this packs a basket of orchard fruits into its flavor profile. But the punch of the alcohol means the higher strength detracts more than it adds and I didn't have a big enough sample to experiment with water. If you like Cotswolds (and you should) and you have the constitution for high octane whisky, this one might tick all your boxes.

A notch better than the unpeated Whisky in Bloom thanks to a delicate smoke on the nose and a creamy finish. I'd happily keep a bottle of this at home.

M&H has chosen to hold itself to Scottish standards and mature its spirit for three years before labelling it whisky, despite the accelerated maturation provided by the Israeli climate. For the US, however, they agreed with their importer to release a less mature “young single malt” called “Whisky in Bloom” and we can be grateful that they did. A nose of buttered toast paves the way to a delicious crisp malt with lovely barrel spice on the finish. Better than many a more mature single malt