Tastes

Woah! This was a neck pour so going to wait a while to do a full review but this is good.

It’s a bummer Old Pulteney 17 has been discontinued because it’s delicious! I opened this bottle 4 months ago (bunkered a backup) and have been slowly making my way through it. It checks all the standard quality boxes; it’s non-chill filtered, no color added and 46% abv. But it’s more than that, this has great mouthfeel, balance and incredibly nuanced flavors. I get the same things on the nose and palate ... toffee, fresh flowers, berries, dry leaves and a touch of brine. The finish is medium and salty/sweet. Wonderful!

This is rich and flavor-packed bourbon with a really nice mouthfeel. On the nose, I get chocolate covered cherries, vanilla, orange zest and a spice that I can’t quite put my finger on. The nose gets better and better as it sits in the glass. On the palate I taste milk duds, light molasses, cream, oak and flashes or dried tart cherry. The finish is not super long but there are nice molasses and citrus notes. Overall a really enjoyable whiskey.

This is a light, easy-drinking bourbon. Good as a summer pour-n-drink whiskey. Flavor-wise, I get fiddle faddle, vanilla and figs. It’s not overly complex but pleasant enough to drink.

This is life-less sherry water. Strong pass. I really have no idea how this has a 91 distiller score. I can only assume that there has been a sharp drop-off in quality since 2013, when that review was published. When I first opened this, there were a couple of interesting drams but, as I continued through the bottle, it became one-note and incredibly boring. The fact that HP waters this down to 43% doesn’t do it any favors; it leaves nothing to play with. I tried giving it air and water and it did very little. Like a cat batting around a dead mouse, I kept hoping it would wake up but alas it did not. I ended up dumping the rest of it into an infinity bottle.

This stuff is incredible! This bottle was distilled in 1983 and bottled in 2015 so it’s 32ish years old. The nose is tropical with scents of pineapple and coconut, toffee, and fresh flowers, with some baking spice undertones. The palate is off the charts. I get rich butterscotch, warm caramel, creamy mango, crisp white grapes, and spiced nuts. The finish is long, oily and perfectly balanced. What lingers are flavors of toffee and milk chocolate - almost like a Heath Bar - and some beautiful wood notes. This is gorgeous! Worth hunting down while it’s still around.

Fantastic! This GD15 was bottled in 2013 and, since GD was mothballed from 1996-2001, this is a minimum of 17-18 years old. This one is all about the mouthfeel - its incredibly rich and syrupy but not cloyingly so; it travels evenly across the palate and has a long warming finish. The flavors are deliciously melded together - a combo of dark chocolate, toffee, toasty oak, tangerine, bing cherry, roasted almonds, candied ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Can’t speak to the new GD15 but this one is wonderful!

A friend shared a pour of this while I was down in AZ on business. It’s absurd! It’s like drinking bourbon shot out of a cannon - the flavors are so amped up that my brain didn’t know what to do with them. I had to put water on it and let it sit and meld back together before I could wrap my head around it.

Burnside bourbon is made by East Side Distilling in Portland, Oregon. It’s named after Burnside street which separates north and south Portland and runs the length of the city. I had a chance to try this garryana-finished small batch at the Rose Festival during a recent trip. (Garryana is Oregon White Oak) As a former OR resident, I love exploring OR spirits and this impressed me. On the nose, I get cinnamon & sugar toast, caramel, tangerine and whiffs of oak. It’s much softer and smoother on the palate than I was expecting. They don’t give an age but on their site they say it’s a mix of straight bourbon and whiskies ranging in age and mashbill. Whatever the combo is, it works. I get rich butterscotch and caramel, orange, cooked down raspberries, and that beautiful OR oak hangs softly on the tongue. I just heard they just released a 10 year old (that juice is sourced and finished in the same Oregon oak) - I’ll definitely be checking that out.

This Green Spot is initially aged in a mix of Oloroso and bourbon casks (I’ve heard there is new American oak in the mix as well but that’s unconfirmed) and then it’s finished in Bordeaux barrels from Chateau Leoville Barton in Saint-Julien. On the nose, I get hot oatmeal with honey, fresh strawberries and raspberries, and baking bread. It’s soft and creamy on the palate with flavors of toffee cookies, raspberry jam, and candied pecans. And it has a medium, buttery finish. I like traditional GS (and it is a perfect whiskey to give to friends who say they don’t like whiskey) but 40% is a little light on the ABV. That’s why I appreciate that they pumped the jam up to 46% on the Chateau Leoville Barton. It’s so much more engaging and complex than the diesel GS.