Taking a short break from scotch to sample an Irish whiskey that was a bonus sample for this round of the SDT, courtesy of @Scott_E. Tullamore DEW is a blended Irish whiskey, this one is finished in Caribbean rum casks. Bottled at 43% ABV and is certainly chill filtered and it appears to have a good amount of colorant added making it an amber honey color. The nose starts off with a big whiff of grain alcohol and an alcohol nip. Once it settles a bit there is some creamy vanilla and coconut with fresh zippy oak. Light brown sugar and faint rum notes. Some sweetness from what I get as berries, but also some banana and orange rind. There is an off note that comes and goes and I can’t put my finger on it. With a little water definite notes of butterscotch and toffee come through and the harshness from the grains is tempered a bit. The palate is not good unfortunately. Sharp grainy alcohol. Bitter, metallic and quite unpleasant. With way more water than should be needed for a 43%er, things got a little better. Rum, butterscotch, banana, brown sugar and bitter oak. That metallic note persists though and a little pine shows up. Better, but still not good. A medium light bodied mouthfeel that is mouth coating and dry. The finish is medium long, metallic with notes of rum, butterscotch and is very dry. The nose isn’t half bad here, but the palate is more than half bad. The amount of water needed to make it palatable kills the nose to the point where you might as well be nosing tap water with a butterscotch candy slowly dissolving at the bottom of the glass. At $30 it’s not a huge blow to the wallet, but for the same price I’d rather grab a bottle of JW Red and mix it with some tonic. I’ll give a 2 and move on. Cheers