Killara Black Velvet Stout Finish Single Malt

Killara Distillery post-tour tasting, 10 August 2024, whisky #3 Nose: Quite dense with lots of dark malt, fig jam, date syrup, dried apple and treacle. It’s a big nose and although what is there is good it lacks depth. Adding water balanced the aromas but did not bring out anything new. Palate: Big arrival full of dark caramel, chocolate and dried fruits (apple, apricot, pear, date, fig, cherry). It’s like a dish of dried mixed fruits that has been reconstituted with Belgian Trappist ale and sweetened with honey. The texture is dense and creamy but it also has a spritzy quality. As with the nose, adding water does not reveal any new flavours but it does meld and balance what is there. Finish: Medium. Ale-malt, chocolate, honey, fruit and spicy notes in the aftertaste. This whisky was initially matured in an unspecified barrel for 2 years before being re-racked into an ex-sparkling wine cask from Clover Hill winery in Tasmania. It rested in this cask for 4 weeks and was then returned to the original barrel while the sparkling wine cask was sent to Iron House Brewery and filled with black milk stout (think something like Guinness) for 8 weeks. The “finished” stout was then bottled and the wet cask went back to Killara to once again be filled with the whisky. After 8 weeks the whisky was bottled at 55% abv, producing 135 bottles. It’s an interesting dram, and a fascinating experiment, but the complex racking made it something of a curiosity rather than a compelling drink. There is an oddly listless and inert quality to this whisky because it has huge presence but the wall of aromas and flavours that you get in the first few seconds is all it has to give. There is no progression and surprisingly moderate length. Water does not do much but I did prefer it with a small dash as it had a noticeable alcoholic “nip” when neat and water removed this. “Above Average” : 82/100 (3.25 stars)