Kings County Peated Malt Whiskey

The nose on this screams young with green bananas that are being barbecued with some peat briquettes then comes some walnuts, vanilla wafers, light barrel spices, nail polish and a medium burn. The taste is a medium mouthfeel with those peaty grilled bananas, walnuts and vanilla wafers before the bitterness kicks in and overwhelms before last note of nail polish and medium ethanol bite comes in. The finish isn’t saving this either, it’s just bitter with unripe green fruit and some peat. This is not impressive and I might have been able to pull more notes out of this one, but just a few tastes are all I can take. Looking at their website shows this is between 1.5 and 4 years old which seems too young and shows on their product. Maybe if they were in Texas with some brutal heat this would be better, but seems like a rushed product to me. Big thanks to @ContemplativeFox for this sample.

Rating: 10/23 The bottle suggests they don't care, but it has kind of a cool, unique style. I've heard this distillery mentioned before, but it's always seemed too expensive. I found some smaller bottles for still unreasonable prices, but at least the total cost is lower. N: Uh oh. This smells young and light. There's some vegetal peat and mineral, but the malt smells young and the whole product smells like it lacks complexity and cohesion. P: It tastes young. It tastes immature. It tastes uncomplex. I get kind of sour, vegetal flavor from the mix of young malt and peat. This isn't a young and rugged dram either: it's pretty bland. Sure, it has smoke too and the guaranteed sweetness from the malt, but it tastes like a few distinct flavors were just thrown together. F: Like the nose and palate, the malt's lightness shows through here. The peat remains as well, but sort of a more mineral sweet and sour element comes out as well. It's kind of odd, but not a whole lot worse than the palate itself. There is at least some richness from the malt and the lack of cohesion and alcohol become less apparent. It doesn't excite or interest me. Imagine Copper Fox Rye (aged a mere 20 months!) but without that maritime complexity or weirdly good Islay presence. I'd love to say that this is good, but it tastes like it kind of doesn't give a crap. Authentically New York, perhaps? It's not that Kings County Distillery is bad at distilling. It's not that they're bad at aging. It's not that their end product is (actively (ACTIVELY)) bad. This is mostly a strong indication that this distillery was not yet ready to release a malt whiskey. It's some combination of the cold environment and jumping the gun. I hate to dump on this, but it's just not very good. I won't rate it based on this, but it's very expensive for what it delivers. There's no way I'll be buying another bottle. I didn't have high hopes, but this is really disappointing. It's smoked rather than peated, but Corsair Wildfire is more complex and it tastes less mature. Corsair Wildfire doesn't have an elderly maturity, but it lacks youthful flaws. Unless peat is an unmovable requirement, Corsair Wildfire is better in every dimension. More rich, more complex, more balanced, more interesting, higher proof, less expensive... This isn't complex and it tastes young. I would take Corsair Wildfire and Copper Fox Rye over this any day, and they're both cheaper. This is almsot like if you took the worst elements of the Corsair and the Copper Fox. Amrut Peated beats all of them despite being less complex and mature than many other peated whiskies, but that just goes to show how inadequate this whiskey is. I can't say that I expected much of this, but I'm still quite disappointed. Considering all of the grievances I've just cited, I can't imagine this being better than a 13. I don't think it is worse than a 9, though I think it is on the lower side of this range. If I had to pick a rating right now, I'd give it a 10. I'm actually thinking that a 9 is too harsh and I might even be willing to give this an 11. It's a 10 for now though. After being so disappointed by this one, I decided to crack open my sample of Kings County Bourbon and give it a small taste. It was a lot better! I think that Kings County is best of focusing on that for the time being. It was like Garrison Brothers Single Barrel Cask Strength Lite, which I enjoyed, albeit not quite as much as the Garrison Brothers. And that reminds me that I need to update my Garrison Brothers review now that that juice has aged and become more complex and rich.

Sweet medicinal nose, kiwi fruit. Custardy grain on the palate. Unique but enjoyable. Long finish.

Wow. IMHO, this is some of the best, most dynamic single malts I've had. It has depth, great mouth feel, layers of delicious flavor. After getting a 750, for $71, I had to take some time to know how much I liked this. A lot. I'm super impressed. I know this is vague, but this is easily a top pick for me.