Tastes

N: Salted plum sitting in a pool of caramel. Herbal tea and mint released with a swirl. Pungent and astringent dried purple fruits. Bit of a grape medicine note. Some vanilla and maybe a touch of wood. P: Sweet with red-purple fruit early. Quickly turns bitter and, yes, umami, but not in the way you would get from food. This is different and, for me, not entirely pleasant. Sharp and sour purple fruit with a vegetal bitterness - something like Brussels sprouts. Touch of heat in it, but that fades pretty quick. Finish is herbal and medicinal, like a Halls cough drop. There are also wood notes and plenty of that dried purple-red fruit. This whiskey is just such a specific taste that really it's going to be a love it or hate it experience for just about everyone. I can see why people would like this in the same way that I can see why people like Sour Patch Kids. There's a certain experience here. But I'm not coming back to this one. Not for me. _______ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord: https://discord.gg/VSmCvzAQfH. We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will provide a new one.)

N: Fragrant and perfumy with smoke-dried flowers, a shimmer of fresh cut vegetables, and then a lemon and sweet grapefruit citrus. Some wet earth, cereal grains, and fresh white bread. Longer it sits in the glass, more I think there's some red fruit in there. Bit of caramel, apple, and cinnamon. It is a gentle and soft nose, certainly by Islay standards, but even generally. P: Red fruit, caramel, vanilla, dried lemons. Notable earthy/heathery notes. Vanilla cream that borders on frosting sweet. Midpalate brings some citrus candy. Holding it on the tongue, after a beat, you get some darker bread and richer caramel notes that just suddenly pop. Finish brings just a splash of cayenne heat early, then fades to an earthy mineral note with caramel, milk chocolate, and lemon citrus mingling. I compared Lag 16 to a Jaguar once* - maybe here, can't remember for sure. Well, if Lag 16 is a classic Jag coupe that you can stuff all your host's paintings and fine silver into the trunk and all they'll say is, of course, it's a Jaaaaaaaag, then this is the MG equivalent where maybe you can stuff a toaster into the trunk - wait, do MGs even have trunks? The Lag 16 has power, class, polish, charisma. This Caol Ila has a similar profile and just enough of some of those things to create a few devoted fans, but it's a pale shadow of its down-coast island neighbor. In particular, the nose here is just too soft and some of the notes really never quite come together to form the cohesive whole and iconic presence you get from the Lag. The midpalate here falls a tad flat and lacks power and the finish is fine, but nothing special either. And all that in a package that costs nearly the same as a bottle of Lag 16. Well, I know I'm picking the Jag over the MG about 99 times out of a 100, and I'm also taking the Lag 16 over this about 99 times out of a 100. But hey, maybe you're that person that just loves the MGs. There's actually nothing particularly bad about this whisky, except that it has a neighbor that does the same thing substantially better. And I can't see this one in any other light than the one that Lagavulin casts on it. *I'm sure I've done it more than once. _______ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord: https://discord.gg/VSmCvzAQfH. We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will provide a new one.)

N: Fruity and warm with baked berries and fresh baked pie crust. Strawberry, cherry, peach, and pear. Dash of charcoal ember that adds a savory and earthy note. Vanilla cream with citrus zest fresh grated on top. Lots to like here. P: Creamy with a vanilla, orange, toasted marshmallow whip. Earthy and sweet with something of an aged tobacco note. Bit of a tropical note with possibly some pineapple. All of it leans floral and honeyed. Transition to finish brings the earthy back and spikes it with baking spices, particularly cumin, nutmeg, and maybe some dried tarragon. Finish itself is generally fruity with anonymous stone and orchard fruit notes with a swirl of orange. Whisper of cigarette smoke closes it out. This is such a subtle dram. I'm at the end of the bottle and barely remember it - palatable and easy to drink, but otherwise forgettable - and yet when I really sit with it and pick it apart, there's more going on. Supposedly this is peated ever so slightly. Once you know that, you can taste it - mostly as a modifier of other tastes, adding toasted or smoked to something else - but it's very subtle. And really lovely. Given that I apparently stole this for roughly $30 below market anywhere else, I really can't complain (and may grab another, because it's still there at that price). _______ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord: https://discord.gg/VSmCvzAQfH. We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will provide a new one.)

N: Corn - lots and lots of corn - with a swirl of caramel. Then a pervasive, gassy ethanol. Herbal black licorice. Then some cleaning supply type smells. P: Creamed corn, corn on the cob, corn boiling in lightly salted water(?). Again, the swirl of caramel. Booze and black licorice. No body whatsoever. Finish is sweet corn with a splash of cleaning supplies. A picture: I'm on vacation and perusing an unfamiliar liquor store, looking for better prices or different bottles than I see at home. In this particular store, I set three up on the counter: Weller 12, Col. E.H. Taylor, and then this $9 liter bottle. That's how I roll. Obviously, this was the first of the three I opened too. This bottle proclaims itself to be "20% Kentucky straight whiskey, thirty-six months old, 80% grain neutral spirits." I had not read that before plunking down my Hamilton for this - I may have reconsidered if I had. Alas, parted with my money, I made the most of it - this proved a solid evening opener while traveling. It's low proof with just enough flavor to warm up the palate without overwhelming anything and leaving plenty of room for the higher end stuff for pour #2 or 3. I finished about half the bottle before I got home. (Okay, I must have poured a few extra somewhere - it was vacation.) Vacation over, I haven't touched the stuff. With a full cabinet in front of me, it's just too wimpy to ever reach for. Put another way, I can't imagine seeking out a bottle that's 80% grain alcohol over proper, aged bourbon or scotch, even the cheapest versions of that. That's saying the obvious, I guess. What's less obvious in returning to this now after a couple months is that, for what this is, it's not terrible. In comparison to bourbon it is terrible - even something like a $10 EW Black blows this away - but for a $9 liter bottle, it gets the job done while avoiding drain pour territory. What more can you ask for? (Don't answer that.) _______ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord: https://discord.gg/VSmCvzAQfH. We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will provide a new one.)

119.12 proof / 59.56% N: Sweet, Christmas spiced rye with coconut rum layered on top. Caramel, banana pudding, and ripe stone fruit. Then there's a very flat vitamin, mineral, medicinal sort of note that sharply cuts straight through all the other notes. After that, it's herbal with some vegetable and bell pepper notes. Vanilla with hints of cough syrup, or at least strong, sweet ethanol. It's a never-ending nose that is sometimes truly delightful and other times not so great. This is one that's clearly going to be very subjective. What's not so very subjective, I would venture at least, is that it is quite complex. P: Sweet rye with apricots steeping in it. The Madeira barrel is more prominent on the palate with sweet and juicy red wine notes of cherry and strawberry cream. Some darker red fruit builds over time, but remains juicy and round feeling on the tongue. There's also a definite cane sugar raw sweetness that's got a bit of cooked molasses in it. Then chocolate, cherry, vanilla, bread pudding. Spice builds in the finish with each sip and leaves a prominent gingersnap cookie taste. It's an extraordinarily long finish that, as the spice fades, also brings banana cream pie, coconut, and those super sweet, mass-produced handheld cherry pies. That minerality from the nose lurks in the corners of the finish for a long, long time and then, several minutes after your last sip, it suddenly slaps your palate across the face with chalky bitterness. It's not my favorite part of the pour. I'm not sure what to say about this except it is the nerdiest of nerd whiskeys. I don't really consider myself a whiskey nerd - more of a traditionalist actually - and so I inevitably end up doing a spontaneous eye roll when I read the list of finishing barrels on the label. Basically, this isn't made for me. And I never really warmed to this juice as a result. But I respect the craft and there is undeniable craft in this. It's complex, layered, and must have taken ages to figure out just the right blend where no one flavor source (between the rye itself and each of the finishes) never really dominates another. That's an accomplishment. And this is a bit of a bargain in the low $70s (assuming that's still where it's at). _______ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord: https://discord.gg/4nfePCdyKM. We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will provide a new one.)

Review # 200. Breaking out the biggest of my big guns. And this will be a dead bottle when all is said and done tonight. N: An absolutely heady scent of mature red wine, pear, peach, coconut milk, and toasted almonds. Crisp red apple, vanilla, caramel, and cookie flour. Tropical flowers. A boozy apple cider and cinnamon note. Rich, heavy, absolutely delightful. P: Caramel, vanilla, spiced coconut, cinnamon, wood. Apples and dried leaves - taste of autumn. Cherry and bread pudding. Plenty of baking spice in the middle - ginger, more cinnamon, nutmeg, coconut shards, cardamom, cumin. Worn leather and some dust and earth. Then another splash of ripe orchard fruit, surprisingly. Mineral notes, slightly bitter, transition to the finish. Hot and chalky finish with sweet pear and green apple nipping at the sides of the tongue. More of the same baking spice as above lingers for a long time. Then something like a raisin cookie emerges after several seconds. Exquisite dram. An incredible taste on par with just about anything else I've had (probably top 5) and certainly a top 2 in the Irish category. The only Irish I can compare this to is the Redbreast Cask Strength. The batch I had of that bottle was absolutely divine and a hair better than this, just a hair. This is deeper, richer, more complex and actually makes the RB look a little simple in comparison. But I liked that simplicity and I paid $67 for the RB and $300 for this (a moment of weakness following a COVID test - negative). It's really impossible to justify that swing. But then there's the batch variation in RB. Maybe Blue Spot will have significant batch variation - too early to say - so that could be a wash. Hard to pick a winner. Bottom line: a bottle of this at the $85 or so it's supposed to retail for would be the killer app of Irish whiskey, but that's just not how the whiskey world works right now. Still, I think the RB is (or was, at that time) underpriced and this is overpriced (thanks secondary :-/). I would probably grab this again (two bottles, in fact) at $150 or less. I'd be tempted at $200. If your budget allows the splurge, grab this one. Price aside, it is an excellent whiskey. _______ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord: https://discord.gg/4nfePCdyKM. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will post a new one.) We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together.

N: Lemon wood polish, bitter (harsh) medicine notes, caramel apple, buttered white bread toast, and just a hint of tropical fruit. White tea, honey, cracked black pepper. Something like a wet cardboard smell. Few more hard swirls and I get a lemon-orange citrus cream. P: Little flat on entry, but after a second... Smoked caramel with lemon juice spritzed all over it. Red apple, honey, cracked black pepper, toffee, and a bread pudding made with a dark bread. Finish brings a big, round caramel and butterscotch note - seriously feels like you're sucking on a candy. Then the lemon with a bit of that wet cardboard note, some black pepper and/or ginger spice, and some faraway sort of amorphous notes of Islay peat smoke (burning tires, medicine, tar, iodine, etc.) Respect to Bowmore for still doing at least some on-site floor malting. For me, there's just too much lemon in this. Not my favorite. But the profile is interesting generally for being something a little different for an Islay. This bears very little to no resemblance to the big and beasty Ardbegs, Lags, and Frogs. It doesn't have the subtlety of Laddies and Kilchoman. Comparatively, it's a little flatter of a profile with less range and less pop than those houses. It just feels like a little less-than in comparison. I doubt I pick up this bottle again, but I'm curious enough I may move up the core range and see what I find. _______ Please come join a bunch of regular Distiller reviewers are chatting spirits in real time on Discord: https://discord.gg/4nfePCdyKM. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will post a new one.)

N: Undeniably a JD product, but certainly more grown up than Old No. 7. Many different iterations of banana: bananas cooked in brown sugar, banana bread, banana nut cereal, banana candy, and banana cooking over charcoal. There's also caramel, vanilla, oak, and orchard fruit. There's probably more, but it smells so good I'm just going in. P: Rich malt notes with smoke and oak char. Caramel, vanilla, cooked banana, brown sugar melting in a cast iron skillet, butterscotch, ginger, and black pepper. Bit of oak tannin leads to the finish, which brings lingering fresh banana, oak, bitter dark chocolate, and cooked brown sugar. I like Jack. I mean, I really like Jack, and this was a great surprise to me. But I've liked every iteration of it I've tried, which is many iterations now - all the ones I can find anyway. This is the best Jack I've had yet. Better than the single barrel. Better than the barrel proof. This takes the best parts of all of those, merges them all together, and adds some extra barrel notes on top. It's a beautiful whiskey. I have to agree with the official Distiller review: it's really too bad that this is rare and expensive and not as ubiquitous as the Old No. 7. But at least it comes in a liter bottle. _______ Please come join a bunch of regular Distiller reviewers are chatting spirits in real time on Discord: https://discord.gg/4nfePCdyKM. (If the link is expired, post a comment and I will post a new one.)