This year for the holidays I’m going to try a brand new whiskey every day in December. #lifegoals Dec. 7: Much like Old Bardstown, I have been excitedly sitting on this one for a very long time. Hoping it was worth the wait! Nose is absurdly bland. This is a sherry finish, right? I can only get a bit of yeast and brine. Body is a different story. Wow. So this just changed things. Body hits smoothly. I get salted peanuts up front. Deep raisin follows. A bit of that brininess is there, but after tasting that raisin, that’s the nose. I go back and get that sherry influence on the nose every time. I have no idea why I couldn’t get it before. Perhaps I was expecting more redbreast and less sherry. Finish is long. There’s black pepper, and the sweetness comes back from the raisin. I’m not a fan of the mouth feel on the finish. I’m getting the heat from redbreast with a syrupy sweetness. It’s confusing. They really took a play out of Balvenie’s playbook here. It’s not just reminiscent. Without any knowledge going in, it would’ve probably been easier to convince me that this was Balvenie doing something screwy with their recipes than it would’ve been to convince me this was a redbreast product. Overall I enjoy this drink. I guess I see how this could be in a weird, undesirable zone. If I wanted Balvenie, I’d pour that. If I wanted Irish whiskey, I wouldn’t want this. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is unique, interesting, and at times confusing. I don’t know if I actually have 24 more new whiskeys lined up, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments.