Bakery Hill Classic Single Malt

On opening the entire lounge room smelt like Methylated Spirit, and despite some water and 10 minutes to calm down, it got no better. The whole 50ml (tasting bottle)went down the toilet, which for $165aud bottle of only 500ml, is a disgrace. Pure un-disguised raw spirit, with no hint of barrel aging at all. Just awful

Bakery Hill tasting event, Sydney, 18 February 2020, Whisky #1 Nose: Bright, gristy cereal, fresh yeasty white bread, lightly fruity and floral, a touch of honey. Intensely spirit driven with barely a trace of cask. Fresh and crisp – almost brittle. Palate: Firm, bright arrival that again focuses squarely on a clean cereal profile. Very crisp with some malty notes but I thought there was little development apart from considerable heat that arises in mid-palate and obscures things a little. The texture is on the oily side of neutral. Like the nose, the palate is spirit-driven. Finish: Medium/short. Light, dry semi-sweet flavours that trail out into a sweet cereal aftertaste. I’ve only tasted one Bakery Hill prior to this (the Sovereign Smoke which I enjoyed a lot and rated at 4 stars here) so I’d expected a little more from this core-range whisky. It’s certainly a very clean and direct spirit but also rather simple. My immediate thought on tasting it was “so what’s all the fuss about?” and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was somehow missing. Adding a dash of water initially improved things by expanding the profile and adding a little sweetness (as it so often does) but over time a feinty wet-cardboard character emerged. I thought this whisky was just on the better side of average, but not by much. At the asking price (US$110 for a 500ml bottle!) I really didn’t think this represents good value. “Average” : 79/100 (2.75 stars)

Glorious sweet honey on the nose with hint of dried fruits (sultanas.) Slightly oily palate with the sweet ripe fruits glazed in honey rising. Strong, heart warming finish - pear-appley end note.

woodier but fades, then crisp green apple notes

Honey

Super smooth, sweet finish. Breakfast whiskey

I tried the peated variety of this Distillery last year in ChCh NZ and really quite enjoyed it despite its lighter speyside profile. I was in Melbourne and staying only 20 minutes down the road from the distillery. Sadly there were no tours when I was there over xmas and NY but I thought why not ring them up and see anyhow. Long story short they were on a holiday season break but doing a bit of a tidy up and the founder / owner David invited me to pop in. It's not often you get to sit down with a founder in his distillery, have a good chat and drink their range of whiskies. David was a very lovely fellow and had lots of very interesting info which I'll spread out over the reviews of his other whiskies. I'm not a speyside profile person but this was nice, predominantly green apple, malt and vanilla. I'd say I preferred the rest in the range more though.