Pike Creek 21 Year Finished in European Oak

Very good. Nose: Milk Chocolate, Coffee, Vanilla, Marshmallows, Licorice, Maple Syrup, Walnuts, Anise, Cloves, Pecans, Brown Sugar, Honey Palate: Vanilla, Maple Syrup, Cherries, Oranges, Milk Chocolate, Peaches, Root Beer Float, Cola, Coffee Finish: Vanilla, Root Beer, Peaches, Apricots, Cherries, Leather, Tobacco, Brown Sugar, Pecans

Very complex and structured. Brown sugar, fruit, lots of oak, honey, and molasses.

Nose: Lots of maple with more subtle notes of has notes of vanilla, honey, green apple, and peaches. Very rich! Palate: Wow, tons of flavour to take in! Initially there is a very rich caramel flavour (typical Canadian whisky flavour for me) on the palate flowed by a nice peppery spice with cinnamon and nutmeg. Finish: Surprising finish with some spicy, woody bitterness. Not as sweet as the nose would suggest and lingers and tingles for some time. Some maple remains keeping true to Canadian whisky, a pleasant surprise!

I am immediately recognizing the aromas of New Hungarian Oak and corn whisky reminiscent of that Bearface whisky I’ve tried recently. — On the nose there is a deep, dark woodiness to this one, like a slightly damp forest floor, some pepper notes from the French Oak and a pleasant fruitiness of the well aged corn spirit itself. It smells amazing! Savory spices, oak wood shavings and cedar, new leather, oily wood furniture polish, maple sugar and some sweet, smoky wood, like starting a fire. - To the palate it is very gentle to start with a building flavour of complex spices and savory wood notes. Warming in the mid palate, some sweet fruity notes, maple syrup, vanilla, pepper, leather and then more oak with subtly sweet cigar tobacco flavour hinting towards cedar. - The finish is drying with rich wood flavours mingled with tingling wood spices. The French and Hungarian new oak barrels are really showing their presence here. — Think Cognac, made with corn instead of grapes, the European Oak has that much presence in this whisky. — With a small splash of water, I find the nose to be more sweet wood and fruity with a hint of roasting hazelnuts. To the palate it is more flat and integrated, but then the spices start collecting in the finish where the oak lingers long on the back of the tongue. More dry, more savory. —//— Grain Mark: 89