Redbreast 12 Year Cask Strength

A very enjoyable Irish whiskey.

Hmm this is a tough one. I loved the 12, 15 and others in this range, this one however I'm not sure about. It has the familiar rich potstill viscous honey profile with a layer of sherry coming through however the ethanol is just to strong and it tips it over to being a slightly unbalanced dram with a hint of bitterness coming through. A few drops of water didn't really help it just washed it out so maybe it was a few to many. I bought out my trusty 57% North Talisker to compare (which never a drop of water has dare defile :-)) and that was as lovely as ever which prompted me to elevate it to a 5 star rating. So it wasn't the my personal aversion to the strength which was causing the perceived imbalance it just seemed to me to be a dram which didn't tolerate such a high abv and allow the other components to hold their own. Now i have tried it twice after the Ledaig 18 so it could be that that has tainted my tasting of this. In my tasting approach high abv and peated is towards the end but perhaps peat should have come after high abv in this case. Regardless I'll give this a 3.5 and given it's a 50% price premium to the standard 12 that's a 3. Will be interested to see how this develops over time