dhsilv2
Fable & Folly 14 Year Whiskey
Blended American Whiskey — USA
Reviewed
March 12, 2022 (edited July 1, 2022)
Oh Diagio and their never ending marketing dollars. What oh what have I done this time? So this is some old heaven hill distillate with god knows what...but likely some MGP something. So it isn't a bourbon. It is bottled at a hateful 45% and chill filtered to hell just to spite anyone who may still love whisky. But hey...that's some really old whisky and it's got 20+ year old heaven hill in it....and at 160, I guess I'm dumb enough to gamble.
Nose - And inviting classic bourbon nose right off the bat. Clean, extreme vanilla, touch of oak, and some caramel character. Deeper inspection will yield a hint of oak smoke, a surprising touch of rye spice, but not a lot more. There's some fruit, but you really couldn't better describe old school proofed down bourbons that used to contain older whiskies than they stated but were chill filtered and watered down from decades of the past.
Taste - So there's no character here, the chill filtering and low abv killed that. Still let it sit and sit and sit in your mouth and some spice will come out, good vanilla, good caramel, and yeah there's a nice rye spice on the finish (that isn't the heaven hill). It even leaves what you can call a pretty good finish.
Overall this is the most boring orphan barrel I've had, but it's quality whisky at the base that's been just ruined by terrible decisions from the company.
2 stars, great quality spirit that has been forced down to an average whisky by the insanely low abv and the down right idiotic chill filtration. Seriously guys 50% and NCF and you've have a winner on your hands and you could ask more for it without a blink of an eye from anyone.
Is this neck pour closed off? Maybe...but I'm not seeing any qualities to make me think that.
Sorry big question? Do you buy it? If you want to try old school style whisky and don't mind the low proof and the lack of oils and fatty acids, yeah, buy 3 or 5. But if you think something like what's in my glass right now, the new riff 6 year malted rye is great...pass. This is just too dulled and stripped of character.
After further review and tasting. I'm moving this up to a 2.75. The rye spices are coming out more and those are giving it more body and bite. It's hiding the youth and it isn't hiding the older bourbons. Overall, I really appreciate what they got here. It isn't epic and it's a gimmick beyond belief but the whisky is actually good.
160.0
USD
per
Bottle
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@tquse apologies for the delay but top shelf whisky, you'll find us in seconds and cheers.
Which channel do you do reviews on? Thanks in advance.
@Zibens they've barely even started their "bourbon journey", and I'm pretty hopefully. The Bulliet distillery is amazing. I think they have good people there to make something out of it. We'll see about Castle and Key. That said they seem to know whisky in general. They are a marketing mess and seem hell bent on finding every nickel they can, but they do get good whisky to market.
@Anthology I must say when mike and I got to our youtube review, I'd taken a turn on this one. It's actually pretty good. It's thin, it's watery, and it doesn't take water well. But I think this is a must buy at msrp if you like rye and dusty bourbon.
Diagio is a company I try to avoid - they have invested everything in to marketing and only harmed the world of bourbons
Nice review! Based on the distiller new release specs (I.e. “crafted from previous Orphan barrel releases like Barterhouse & Forged Oak…two of the better releases from the orphan series I might add …plus several of the [hit or miss] rhetoric releases”) I can see the temptation to wanna pull the trigger on this. Appreciate the heads-up! I might still pull the trigger if I see this at retail cos you know, we on this F’ing whiskey journey are all F’ed in the head! 🙂
The name is Fable & Folly…sounds like truth in advertising!