Tastes

PRICE: $25-35. INFO: Blended Malt from Kininvie, Glenfiddich, and Balvenie. NAS. 43% ABV. NOSE: 80/100. Nice nose. You can tell it’s young, but the youthful funk is hidden well by confident notes of hazelnut vanilla coffee creamer, clementines, and apple. A very Glenfiddich-y apple. PALATE: 76/100. That’ll do monkey. To ape the classic movie about a pig, “Babe.” This is family friendly indeed. Sweet arrival. Citrus and cream, ala orange marmalade. I even get a little bit of milk chocolate. So comforting and pleasant until you swallow, when it becomes a little harsh. FINISH: 66/100. Not a complete disaster, and I can’t complain for the price point. It’s short, and the orange flavors remain with lots of maltiness. A little bitter, a little spicy. OVERALL: Not something I seek out, but it’s something I’m always happy to have around. And if you ever do a BYOB blind tasting event, bring Monkey Shoulder. It won’t costs you much. People will give you dirty faces until they inadvertently rank this gem higher than their twice-as-expensive single malt. I will never turn my nose at a gifted Monkey Shoulder either. I don’t feel guilty for drinking too much, using it to cook, or having it side-by-side with a Guinness (delicious BTW). MARK: 75/100 VALUE FOR PRICE: Hell yes. Best bottle of scotch you can hope to purchase for under $30.

This has quickly become my go to American whiskey. It’s $75-90 per bottle, and I haven’t bought myself a bottle yet, but I’ve probably had enough pours already that I could’ve bought a bottle. Most whiskies bank on the nose, and gets weaker on the palate, and weaker still on the finish. This is a rare dram that picks up intrigue from nose, to palate, to finish. NOSE: Out of the bottle, it comes at you like a feral dog. Hot, spicy, nutty, and too oaky. Put the glass back down. It needs water and time. On the do over, after 1-1.5 teaspoon water per ounce and ~10 minutes, it becomes more composed. Vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, rotting wood, cashews and almonds. There’s a pickled smoke background. PALATE: Definitely wait until the nose settles before you try to sip. There is a lot of rye spiciness, caramel, and chocolate on the arrival. This is an aggressive whiskey. A little bit sour, a little bit bitter, which balances well with the sweetness. With more breathing time, it rounds into Macadamia and cranberry flavors. FINISH: Addicting. As the sweetness disappears first, it’s mouth-drying and relentless with spiciness, bitterness, sourness. But then the toasted barrels show their influence and the final notes are of the best boozy Indonesian mocha beans. It lasts about an hour. You can have one pour (drink responsibly!) at a restaurant and enjoy the aftertaste throughout the drive home. WITH WATER, WITH FOOD: You need to add some water to tame this dram. I have found a lot of enjoyment using this as both an aperitif and digestif. The tartness stimulates the appetite, and transitions well into game meats such as venison or quail. By the time you are finished your meal, the remaining dram becomes more rounded. The long toasted mocha bean finish is a very rewarding desert. MARK: 87/100

Had a vertical Hibiki tasting: Some lovely 1.5oz pours of Harmony ($10), 12 year ($22.50), and the 21 year ($75). I feel like Hibiki 21 is for people who enjoy giving and receiving commemorative pens. They see the big picture of accomplishment, and appreciate effortless precision and technique. I am not one of those people. So, my big picture perspective, even the top-of-the-shelf 21 year Hibiki loses out to the 12 year Yamazaki. Hibiki, as a brand, is all about harmony, meditation, asking questions without answers, writing haikus, and becoming aware of your nature and nature itself. Fine and dandy. But when I pay $75 for a dram, I want Godzilla. NOSE: Very floral. Like with Hibiki 12, I’m stuck on cherry blossoms after a light rain. Terroir is just a nice way to say stereotyping. Richer, more buttery, and more nutty than the 12. I do not get sandalwood oils with the other two Hibikis (they promised I would!), but I get some here. It’s very perfumy, like you want to pour some into a Glade plug-in. PALATE: Soft, flowery, gentle. Full body that’s all fat and no muscle. Oily. Walnut oil, citrus oils. Buttery sweetness with a hint of bitterness, ala Crème brulee with burnt sugar. Lovely apricots and nectarines. Plums and sultanas. It tastes expensive, to be sure. FINISH: Is that peat? I’ll call it lapsong suchong. Stereotyping again. Layers of various stone fruit notes, essential wood oils, rich fruitcake, slowly fading. This is a whiskey that never fought back, for better and worse. WITH WATER: Water kills Hibiki. Seriously. It’s like the twist ending to M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. VERDICT: To summarize: it’s a blend that appeals to the tastes of the masses, and the pockets of the fortunate few; floral nose; luxurious and balanced palate; a little peat on the finish; does not like water; overpriced and overhyped, in my estimation. Sounds like Johnny Walker Blue? To be fair, Hibiki is 43% ABV and has a little more oomph, especially winning out on the finish. JW King George V is 43%. I’ve never tried King George, and it’s priced in the same ballpark as Hibiki 21 ($450-ish). If I ever make fuck you money, I’ll do a side-by-side between Hibiki 21 and King George. And I’ll have Glenfiddich 12 with a crystal dropper instead of water to zero the palate in between drams and to open up the whiskies. MARK: 84/100. Minus one star for the price.

Had a vertical Hibiki tasting: Some lovely 1.5oz pours of Harmony ($10), 12 year ($22.50), and the 21 year ($75). Best value for money ends up going to the 12. I did not like Harmony (63/100), and the 21 (review upcoming) did not add much to justify being 3x the price. NOSE: Sherry, not sherry! There is such a distinct Asian plum on the nose because of some Asian trickery! This was partly matured in casks that once held plum liquer. Orange marmalade. Apple juice. Floral, so, because it’s Japanese, cherry blossoms. Of course, right? Terroir does exist. It’s not a property of the spirit, it’s a property of our minds. PALATE: So soft. It’s like eating a pillow. Comparing this to the Harmony highlights the difference between a whiskey that’s subtle (the 12), and a whiskey that’s absent (Harmony). Plums, oranges, apples, and flower petals are again on the forefront, but superbly balanced with oak, vanilla, and honey. Spiciness leans towards cinnamon, but is very slight. You can tell the grain components are properly aged, and add a good backbone. FINISH: Plums stay on board, but never does it get overpowering or become unwelcomed. Fruity sweetness gradually becomes a little sour and bitter; just a gentle nudge to take another sip. I don’t mind at all. VERDICT: Nothing really pops out of this dram. It’s a picturesque scene rather than a compelling story. The price for this before Yamazaki divided by 0 was $50-60. Double that? Fine, maybe still worth it. Quadruple that? No way. Bottles are now around $200, and I don’t do investing. I know for consumption purposes, this is not worth $200. MARK: 82/100.

Had a vertical Hibiki tasting: Some lovely 1.5oz pours of Harmony ($10), 12 year ($22.50), and the 21 year ($75). One ounce of the Hibiki 21 is the price of an entire 750mL bottle of the Harmony… and I would rather have another ounce the 21 rather than an entire bottle of Harmony. NOSE: Bourbon and water. Is that harmony? I been smelling too many crazy cask-strength stuff recently. I had to put my nose into the glass and almost touch the liquid with a single overgrown nosehair I need to clip to get any discernable aromas. Soft, rounded notes of vanilla, oak, coconut. Maybe imagine some honeydew and bamboo forest. PALATE: Rounded to the point of being unnoticeable. At first, you’re like “Oooh, this is nice,” and then you’re like, “That’s it?” Every sip is the same as the last. Vanilla, honey, wheat, sawdust, apples. Is it muddled or is it balanced? It’s so shy, I don’t care. What I do notice is that it’s tainted by a young liquorice flavor. FINISH: It goes away. VERDICT: This is not an adequate replacement for the 12 year. The entire delicious plum, marmalade sherry profile is absent. If you’re into the whole “wellness” fad, and dig gentle, soft, meditative things, maybe Harmony is appropriate, but at a lower price point than $50-60. At $20-30, this would be adequate, but is currently way overpriced due to the Japanese whisky hype. MARK: 63/100.

Nothing beats a free pour for your birthday. And nothing makes you feel younger than trying new stuff. So I’ve been trying stuff outside of scotch, including bourbons. I’m really enjoying some natural strength Michter’s and Four Roses, which are expensive enough pours, so bartender asks what’s the occasion, and I say it was my birthday. He gives me an ounce of “their most sought after and rarest whiskey” on the house. Whatever. Just sayin’ that to make me feel special. I find out later that this is harder to find than Pappy, rated by most experts as better than Pappy, and some online stores are selling this marked up to as much as $890. Wow. NOSE: Probably the best nose of any bourbon I’ve tried so far. It’s utterly decadent bakery stuff with a boulangery sweetness and spiciness (as opposed to “America runs on Dunkin”). I feel most bourbons sadly strive to be the perfect corn syrup; but there’s no corn syrup in this one. There’s brown sugar, dark chocolate with cherry syrup, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon sprinkled on a French Baguette. The high 67.7 ABV keeps the scents under wraps. Even though you can already smell it with your nose 2 feet above the glass, you know there are pent up aromas that will explode out with some water. PALATE: Hot caramel sludge. Molten macaroons. So densely sweet and hot, it’s almost unbearable. The alcohol dries your mouth in the first 1-5 seconds, despite the rich sweetness. This transitions to the gentler tartness of grape and strawberry jams. The salivary glands start to catch up after about 10 seconds, and the mouth waters. FINISH: Baking spices and Dr. Pepper lingers on. The finish is long. The liquid is resinous and mouth-coating. As the intensity wanes, a little bit of the vanilla American oak finally is noticeable. And some coconut oil, exotic yeast proteins, sourdough sourness. WITH WATER: I had one sip neat, and then added almost 50% water by volume. Even with the addition, there’s plenty of alcohol punch. Candied fruit aromas wake up and start jumping out of the glass. The sweetness changes from brown sugar to more honeycomb. The palate is much fruitier, bordering on Juicy Fruit bubblegum, but this is balanced by tartness. The wood influence makes an earlier appearance. Neat offered some tightly wrapped flavors that spill out with the addition of water. I would recommend trying this both ways. VERDICT: Spent a long time with this one, and had fun. In the end, the Michter’s Toasted Barrel I paid for earlier was better to my tastes, but this one deserves respect because it threatened to put me on my ass. It lacks the full fruity range and salinity of a good Scotch, but this makes up for it with a confectionary clobbering. What is a fair price for this bottle? I would consider buying at the $150 range, not the >$500 prices I see online. MARK: 89/100.

My favorite, ahem, mixed drink is an Irish carbomb. Folks keep telling me that Jameson is stepping up their game lately. The original Jameson is a staple shot for bachannals, not something I dare analyze. Methinks what better way to reevaluate Jameson than to try their Caskmates, which is potentially 2/3 of an Irish carbomb. VERDICT: This might actually be worse than the original Jameson. Bad stout. It’s not Guinness. Not enough stout. I really have to search for the coffee and dark chocolate notes. The rest is light bodied malty creamy forgettable crap, ala Jameson. The finish is now more bitter, coppery, and unpleasant. Sadly, this is still missing a Guinness and an Irish cream. Caskmates my ass. $33 wasted. MARK: 48/100.