Milliardo
Reviewed
December 22, 2020 (edited June 18, 2021)
It’s 2020. It’s December. Let’s shut this year down with a brand new whiskey (or whisky) every day. It’s my own personal whiskey advent calendar. +6!
Dec. 22, 2020
How dare you accuse me of purchasing this scotch today for $49.99 at my grocery store simply because it came with two really cool looking glasses. It’s not that easy to win my affection. This is an outrage.
When I uncorked this whisky, the black part twisted off leaving the cork still stuck in the bottle. I have never seen that before. Not a good start, Dalmore. You will now have the cork formerly owned by Ezra Brooks. I hope you’re happy.
Nose has sugar, raisin, pickle juice. It’s a head-scratcher. Sugar like a bourbon, raisin like a sherry-finished Speyside, pickle like a rye.
Body has raisin, vanilla, ice cream. It’s delicious. If I had to pick one thing, I’d say a raisin cookie with soft vanilla icing.
Finish is malt chocolate, toffee. If I force the dill pickle note, trying to trick my palate into viewing this as a rye whiskey, the sweetness on the finish kind of takes a backseat to a briny, salty note. But I can just as easily focus on the raisin to get turned back on to those sweet, desert notes. It’s substantially more enjoyable as a sweet, desert whisky than as a briny one. This is just delightful.
I just read into how they make this stuff, and the choose your own adventure bit makes sense now. After nine years in ex-bourbon casks, half of it goes in ex-Sherry butts for 3 years while the other half stays in ex-bourbon casks. This introduces the sherry sweetness without completely overriding the bourbon influence, which I’d bet a nickel was a high-rye bourbon influence. Very cool whisky witchcraft here, and I’m very glad I took a flyer on this scotch. (Even with that busted cork nonsense, which I’m going to assume is an anomaly.)
‘Tis the season. I’m day-to-day on my whiskey selection, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. Merry whiskey to all, and to all a beer flight!
49.99
USD
per
Bottle