We're coming full circle here on this last tasting for St. Patrick's Day 2025. Boxty Pancakes with Mushrooms and Cabbage has been consumed. I've reviewed Method and Madness Garryana Oak and Teeling Single Malt Red Wine Cask, and now, I'm finishing the night with Writers' Tears Double Oak. My first review ever on Distiller here was Writers' Tears Copper Pot, and I gave it a lukewarm reception, though I can't be bothered to look at what my rating was. Still, I remember what my opinion was: better than Jameson and Tully, but not enough to, at the time, charge double the price. I had a bottle of Double Oak before that, too, and I knew the Double Oak was better, but they were charging $45 or so and I thought that was too much. How times have changed! Double Oak is now going for $60, though this month, it's on clearance and back down to $45, which in today's market feels like a steal. Because this is certainly not a bad whiskey at all. And $45 feels right. The two oaks involved are bourbon casks and cognac casks, and I do enjoy a good cognac finish. What we talk about when we talk about cognac finished whiskies is always to me golden raisins. It's the first thing that pops to mind when we're talking cognac finish. It's on the nose, on the palate, all over the dram. With this, there's also honeysuckle aroma, which I feel like is splitting the difference between the bourbon influence and the cognac as well as mandarin orange. There's something about the scent too that reminds me of a woman's floral shampoo, a sort of fresh edge to the honeysuckle that reminds you of fresh washed sheets on a warm summer day, a lovely laundry detergent. The palate carries over that lemon detergent flavor, though I wouldn't compare it to drinking detergent, which would be disgusting. The lemon mingles with a vanilla flavor that's quite pleasant as well as those golden raisins coming back. There's not a great deal of complexity beyond that, maybe a hint of ginger on the back end as it transitions into the finish. But what it does, it does well. Maybe not $62 well, which was what this cost at full price after 5 years of inflation or so (I think maybe I bought this after it appeared on the Whisky Advocate Top 20 in....let me Google...2019. It appears as #10, so now it's almost 6 years), but it's certainly worth $45 now (though $45 felt steep then, but I was in...well, the same tax bracket actually, I'm just higher in that bracket now, but to put it in context, Old Ezra 7 appeared at #7 and cost #40 and is now $80). Ah the good ol' days when whisky was affordable. Honestly, I have no idea where I'm going with this other than it's been a rough fah-king decade so far, a topsy turvy world, and Writers Tears is a decent whisky that like a lot of other distilleries is maybe feeling itself a bit too much and overrating how much we're willing to spend on their whiskies, which may be why I found this on clearance in the first place. Of the whiskies I've tasted tonight, I'm reviewing this third and it's third in my heart and estimate. Which is not to say avoid it. Just make sure you're paying what it's worth. So yeah, after 179 reviews, I'm not much further than where I was at #1 with their Copper Pot. Relatively easy to drink, but certainly not an Irish heavyweight. Conor McGregor, this is not.