Tastes

Batch 269, bottle 456/600. Nose is cherry and wood forward, with a smokey rubber note hanging over. Interesting and changed throughout my dram, getting sweeter and tangy towards the end. I got a moment of smoked sweet barbeque at the front of the palate that changed to the burnt rubber and iodine of peated Scotch. Again it changed as a sipped, bringing the sweeter dried fruit notes forward with the smoke become more definitive. The finish stays long and iodine/smoke. Very long at times. This is a great interesting whisky, and worth the buy for the enthusiast.

Standard sweet Irish. Honeyed butter and biscuits. Add a dash of a strongly peated budget Islay for a great contrasted but friendly dram!

Batch no. 20C12; An extremely interesting and enjoyable whisky. The gin jumps out at you in the nose and palate. However, if you look behind it you will get a toasted vanilla woodiness and traditional rye spice/sassafras flavor. The finish lingers, there is some oil here. It's the pine needles from the gin still, along with the sassafras or black licorice sweetness. I did find a tad of new leather every once in awhile as well. After a few minutes it all gets rounded up with the menthol I get from a Lagavulin. For the price this is an excellent whisky for enthusiastic drammers. I look forward to trying other High West bottlings!

This is honestly the most complex but still enjoyable whisky I've had. I get wet river stone, old leather and wood in a study, with some light sweetness in the background. This was a gift and I'll likely never get to try it again, but it reawakened my enthusiasm.

Pretty standard bourbon. Lots of corn and new barrel roughness. A bit of water tones it down. Still just a pretty good bourbon.

The smoke of Islay with none of what makes the smoke great. It's somehow too sweet from nose to finish even with the smoke. I love Islay whisky but this almost makes me gag. If I didn't know that flavoring was illegal in Scotland I would think the smoke was fake. Very strange experience. If you already have this bottle and can't stomach it neat, you can try adding a dab to other budget non smoked drams. This works well with a blended Irish (Jameson). Fun to experiment with, still can't do it neat! Edit after having the bottle for a few months. The sickly sweetness does mellow out after awhile and marry with the smoke. Still not great but at least I don't gag, and it has been a good one to blend into cheap Irish.

Nose and palate are initially traditional rye spice. Palate becomes bready with some sweetness on the back end and the finish is simple with a short spicy note. Water brings out sweetness with the spicy nose. Palate remains spicy but gets more bread like with a bitter note on the end. Not bad but there are better near the same price point. It is worth noting there is some oil on this one. On second and a longer visit I do get more wood in the finish. Otherwise still pretty simple and spicy. 3rd follow up. Towards the end of the bottle I get a chocolate nutty flavor on the back end of the pallet and finish that I really like.

Strong at cask strength. With some water it's becomes spicy and Sweet with some grass notes. Not a whisky to try after a deployment without any alcohol.

The nose is a simple and Sweet bourbon typical, but not unpleasant. This is a pretty sweet and easy to drink bourbon even at 47% but still has some good flavors and heat. Some water actually increased the complexity and bite for me but I prefer it at 47%. This is likely my new cabinet bottle to keep around for when I'm in the mood for a bourbon. Easy must buy for the usual price point.

Nose is simple and light ethenal. However, the taste is surprisingly interesting and peppery. Some sweetness with the pepper in the finish. What a fantastic value rye! 2nd visit with some water opens and brightens the whole whisky.