rottendon
Connoisseur
50
17 mar 2024 11:48 pm
Since I wanted to try this whiskey today in honor of Saint Patrick, I guess I have to apologize to Saint Patrick now. Luckily, there are three more Irish whiskeys available to make up for this faux pas. The marketing narrative on the bottler's website is, of course, sensational to read. The distillate is said to come from the Great Northern Distillery, which is why the maximum age of the distillate is 9 years. However, I'm pretty sure that very few of the distillates in this whiskey will have spent 9 years in a barrel. There is also no sign of the sherry cask finish described on the website. Instead of filling the bottles with a reasonable whiskey for this price, which is quite high even for an Irish whiskey, they only concentrated on creating a perfume bottle as packaging, which only lacks the atomizer. A whiskey for show-offs, not for connoisseurs.
нос · вкус · финиш
| Нос | 40 | Immediately after pouring it smells strange and inharmonious, difficult to define. There is a strong chemical note that overpowers almost everything, a mixture of acetone and carbolineum or some wood impregnating agent. Interestingly, I had sniffed the sample bottle the day before and mainly had a strong vanilla caramel note on my nose, as you would expect from bourbon barrel aging. This is very difficult to distinguish under this dominant note. After a few minutes this note only got worse, with a lot of imagination you could still describe it as a herbal note, perhaps like a bad herbal bitters. This brings back very strong memories of the Irish Diamonds from Aambic - https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/94580/irish-diamonds-2005-ac#whisky-community - which also passed for everything, but certainly not as whisk(e)y. Now that the glass has stood for a quarter of an hour and the nose has had time to get used to this note, a few fruity notes are actually coming through, perhaps also peat and licorice? Anyway, this is really uncomfortable. After another ten minutes, the nose gets used to this smell and there are actually caramel notes underneath. If you warm the whiskey in your hand, the ridiculous 42% alcohol actually starts to bite the nose a bit. Otherwise more vanilla, more caramel, reminiscent of marshmallows, otherwise no other flavors can be found. This strange herbal decoction is still there, but the nose has now largely blocked it out, so it's actually quite bearable now. After the whiskey has passed through the throat for the first time, there are now relatively dark fruity notes that were not found before. Together with the marshmallows and the now only slight herbal note, it actually creates an appetizing overall picture. However, since you first have to take a sip and it takes at least half an hour of time, it still can't give a good rating for the nose overall. |
| Вкус | 60 | It's all there in the mouth too, but it's definitely not harmonious. Overwhelming sweetness, syrupy density, plus alcoholic spiciness, which leads to a chili catch that many a Talisker would bow to, plus clear bitter notes that are further intensified towards the end, no, balance is something else. The grain content is also likely to be relatively high here. The second sip seems a bit more harmonious overall, the sweetness is no longer quite as brutal, there is now some fruit acid, the bitterness only comes further back, the mouth has gotten used to the poor alcohol integration, it seems more harmonious overall. |
| Финиш | 50 | The finish is overall short and rather insignificant. There is no reheating of the chest cavity, all the aromas disappear relatively quickly, a slight grainy bitterness remains for a little longer, but is also gone very quickly. |
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