Starward Small Batch Hungarian Oak

Something tells me that I’ll be the only person to leave notes for this strange concoction… Starward are just about the biggest producers of Australian Whisky to the wider world. They have done some OK stuff. They’ve also done some bad stuff that they then gave away for free (maple cask that I tasted earlier this year). They’ve even managed to clean up at the SFWSC competition this year taking out “most awarded distillery” with eight double golds. Are they that good, really? Everything I’ve tasted so far leads me to think, probably not. Starward have a ‘small batch series’ where they try out experimental new expressions like ginger beer cask and the failed maple syrup cask. This is their third release, the Hungarian Oak. Starward released just 1200 bottles of this liquid matured in ex-Hungarian oak red wine casks and charred Hungarian oak casks. The Hungarian Oak is a blend of three barrels. Two were fresh fill barrels filled in January 2016 at Essendon Fields distillery. The third barrel was filled in August 2017 at Port Melbourne and then transferred into a charred Hungarian oak in 2019. It was blended in August 2021 making it under four years old. Not wanting to risk buying a bottle, I tracked down a 30 ml sample. N: drying woody notes are dominant, syrupy thick blackcurrant, big huffs and there is a plastic vanilla that isn’t particularly fun; I’m glad its hidden so well. Faintest banana. Maybe some really generic baking spice. To be honest this is somewhat dull. P: Oh man that sucks the moisture off your tongue. Have you ever licked chalk or clay? Your tongue will stick to it like crazy. Once this stuff exits your mouth, your tongue and roof of mouth feel like they are being vacuumed into another dimension. Possibly the most astringent thing I’ve ever drunk. After that distraction I’m finding mocha with pleasant bitter-sweetness, toffee, nutmeg and a solid roasted oak heft. Blackcurrant and maybe a little raisiny fruit. F: Medium-long. Led by pepper and oak tannins with a little vanilla toffee. Leads to more astringency though. I hit this with a liberal splash of water. At 50% and how drying this palate is I figured the water was warranted. A good move. The nose doesn’t move much for me. But the palate relaxes, the desert air that removes all mention of moisture (and your soul) has chilled out and turned into a thickly creamy mouthfeel. If I didn’t know better I could be made to believe this is weird wooded chardonnay. Slightly nutty, the mocha is less prominent, banana has entered the chat and the dark fruits have combined into a single generic lifting sweetness. I’m liking this now. If I could churn this into butter I would liberally apply it to bread and likely be very happy. Finish has moved to a soft buttery toffee with less aggressive tannins. This was my first outing with Hungarian Oak, and I didn’t know what to expect. The higher proof opening on the palate here did not work for me. The spirit and the wood did not play well in my book. But, tempered with a good bit of water things started to get along better. I have had a fair bit of French Oak of late and that is definitely the silkier and creamier brethren to the roasty weight that Hungarian wood throws in here. Very much a barrel driven whisky. The red wine flavours that Starward espouse as the principal profile that unites their offerings plays second fiddle here, maybe even third or fourth fiddle, the oak is just that big. More careful balance and Starward might have been onto a winner for me. Double gold at SFWSC, I now have no idea what that means. I give it an interesting and middle of the pack medal and a good effort sticker. [Pictured here with an Emerald Phlogopite Schist from Kagem’s Fibolele mine in Zambia that has its origins dating back over 1.7 billion years. No particular reason, I just had it out this evening and its pretty] Distiller whisky taste #103