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Green Spot Irish Whiskey Finished in Zinfandel Wine Casks
The Green Spot Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey is a nice little Irish Whiskey with a long history. My first bottle(s) of it were purchased 6-7 years ago and I burned through them pretty quickly. This particular expression was finished for 12 months in Zinfandel wine casks from Chateau Montelena, a Calistoga, Napa Valley, vineyard. The Green Spot is a NAS whiskey blended from 7-10 year old ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. According to Vivino, Montelena’s Zinfandel is bold with lots of oak, vanilla, and both black and red fruits. I no longer have the regular Green Spot to use as a baseline, but let’s see how this one goes….
Glen Grant 15 Year Old Batch Strength First Edition
The Glen Grant 15 Year old Batch Strength First Edition has been on my list for a while and I finally got a bottle this past Christmas from my brother and sister-in-law. This will be my first time tasting a Glen Grant and I read the initial review so long ago that I have absolutely no idea what to expect from a flavor profile perspective, so let’s check it out…
Blanton’s The Original Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey
Blanton’s is one of the most recognizable bourbon brands in the market. It used to be very accessible, but in recent years as premium bourbon has become more coveted, it is harder to find and far pricier than even 6-7 years ago.
Aberfeldy 18 Year Red Wine Cask Finished
The Aberfeldy 18 Year Finished in French Red Wine casks from Pauillac, Bordeaux was named Whisky Advocate’s #10 (of Top 20) in 2020. I purchased it a while back but it has been sitting on my shelf waiting for a good time to open. Why not now?
Redwood Empire “Pipe Dream” Bourbon Whiskey
Redwood Empire is a Sonoma County, CA, distillery which produces 3 sourced products and 2 that are 100% made in house. I will be reviewing the “Pipe Dream”, which is one of the sourced whiskeys. The mash bill is 75% Corn, 21% Raw Rye, and 4% Barley…
The Balvenie 30 Year
This next review is the crown jewel of my whisky collection, The Balvenie 30 Year that my wife bought for me for my birthday 8 years ago when we were still dating. She happened to give me this around the time I was hunting for her engagement ring, so to say that she is a master strategist would be an understatement.
George Remus Single Barrel Cask Strength
George Remus Single Barrel Cask Strength Bourbon is a newer brand from a distiller you have been drinking for decades, MGPI, the Lawrenceburg, IN distilling behemoth. After supplying many of the craft distillers early on in their respective operations (including the George Remus brand), MGPI acquired the brand back in 2016 and expanded its distribution. The mash bill isn’t marketed, but given the spice level, it’s MGPI’s bourbon mash bill with either 21% or the 36% rye.
Old Potrero Straight Rye Whiskey
I bought my first bottle of Old Potrero Rye about 10 years ago and it was meh. The bottle remained on my shelf for many years and I finally finished it a while back to clear some space. To be fair, I believe that bottle was young, perhaps a 2 year old? Can’t be certain. This is a long-winded way of saying that I wasn’t looking to give Old Potrero another shot but picked one up last month at @gordonswine in the Greater Boston area after speaking with one of the owners, @thewhiskyguys. This bottle's one of the store’s barrel picks. I generally don’t do store picks except for @gordonswine because they pick great barrels and I have yet to be disappointed. That said, I approached this bottle with some trepidation.
SMWS 12.53 “Going Crazy in a Bakery”
I plan on sprinkling in some Scotch Malt Whisky Society reviews over the next few weeks as I have more on the way and I need to make some room on my shelf! For those that aren’t familiar, SMWS is a club (annual fee) that buys casks from distilleries and always bottles them at cask strength. They come up with colorful names and label them under a distillery & cask code so you don’t know who the distillery is, but it’s the worst kept secret in the whisky world and there are plenty of websites that tell you which each one is. Distillery #12, which is BenRiach, is in Speyside and was distilled on Sept. 29, 2009 and put into 1st fill ex-bourbon barrels.
New Riff Single Barrel Bourbon
New Riff is a newer distiller/brand out in the market and one of my first forays back into craft distilling since taking a break from it for the past 6-7 years. Why take a break? Well earlier in the craft movement a lot of brands were putting out really young whiskey, which I get, because you need to convert inventory to cash in order to continue to operate. Unfortunately, a lot of it was at a premium price ($50 7-10 years ago was a premium!) and it wasn’t very good. New Riff seems to have had the wherewithal to be patient, keeping their products aging until they are a minimum 4 years of age. Their whole schtick is that they are a new riff on the old sour mash tradition so let's see how they did.
Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey
Another cheap-but-great whiskey is the Sazerac Straight Rye, colloquially known as “Baby Sazerac” to distinguish it from its older sibling, the 18 year old BTAC annual release.
It is commonly believed (via the whiskey diehards on the internet) that this is a 6 year old Rye with a mash bill of 51% Rye, 39% corn and 10% malted barley. What we do know is that it is labeled as a “Straight Rye” without a specific age statement so it is at least 4 years old. I don’t believe anyone has ever confirmed the mash bill, but people seem to believe that this is the one rye mash bill that Buffalo Trace makes (Sazerac is made by Buffalo Trace, who is in fact owned by Sazerac, confusing? Sure). Let’s see how this one fared…
Glen Moray Elgin Classic Port Finish
This is the final review (for now) on my lower price point whisk(e)y reviews. We have explored bourbon, rye and Irish thus far, so now it is time for a single malt Scotch. In an attempt to keep it an apples-to-apples comparison, I selected another $30 bottle to see how a single malt matches up at that price point.
Teeling Small Batch Irish Whiskey
Continuing on the good-bang-for-your-buck trend, our next review is on an irish whiskey, Teeling Small Batch. The Small Batch is @teeling_whiskey’s core product, which is a blend of both grain and malt whiskey each aged in ex-bourbon barrels. According to the website, this blend is then married in Central American rum casks for up to 12 months. However, the bottle I will be reviewing was bottled in November 2019 and states that it was finished in rum casks for 6 months so perhaps the newer releases have a little longer finish to them, I will have to find one and compare.
1792 Small Batch Bourbon
Apologies dear reader, I inadvertently have been reviewing some higher priced bottles, so I will focus my next few reviews on lower price point whiskeys as while I enjoy nice bottles, I love finding undervalued gems even more.
1792 Small Batch Bourbon is made by the Barton distillery which is owned by Sazerac who also owns Buffalo Trace and all of their great whiskeys. The Small Batch Bourbon is the core product for 1792, but they also have a slew of other “Limited Edition Expressions” including Sweet Wheat (I’ll be reviewing that in the near future), Single Barrel (same), and Full Proof (same), as well as Bottled in Bond, 12 Year Old, High Rye, and Port Finish, each of which I would love to review once I get my hands on them.
Lagavulin 16 Year Old
Hailing from Islay, Lagavulin is one of the more recognizable peated scotch brands out in the market. What I like most about peated single malts is how distinctly different each flavor profile is within the peat category. I wrote about this a bit in my Talisker Distillers Edition review, and the Lagavulin 16 is no different. For those of you that are fans of American sitcoms, the Lagavulin 16 was the go-to scotch for Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation. The character was so tightly tied to this bottle that Lagavulin released an 11 year old version named after the actor, Nick Offerman, who plays Ron in the show. I’m going to have to grab one of those next….
The Balvenie “The Sweet Toast of American Oak” Aged 12 Years
Full disclosure, I am a big The Balvenie fan with the first nice single malt I ever purchased being the old Single Barrel 15 Year (the one aged in traditional casks, not the current sherried version). For this review, we will be tasting The Sweet Toast of American Oak Aged 12 Years, which was the first release in the new Balvenie Stories Collection. This expression takes Balvenie juice aged in ex-bourbon barrels and then puts it in Kentucky virgin oak barrels that were deeply toasted at Balvenie’s cooperage. Given the profile, I expected this to be somewhat similar to the 12 year old Single Barrel First Fill staple that is part of the core Balvenie line.
WhistlePig 12 Year Old World Cask Finished “Bespoke Blend”
Whistlepig 12 year Rye Old World Cask Finished “Bespoke Blend” is a mouthful of a name, but how does a sip of it fare?
Four Roses Small Batch Select
Four Roses Small Batch Select is a bourbon made from 6-7 year old barrels using both of Four Roses’ mash bills and three of their proprietary yeast strains (V, F, and K), making this a blend of 6 different flavor profiles. Look through the pictures with this post to see a breakdown of the mash bills and yeast strains and the target flavor profiles for each.
Glenmorangie “A Tale of Winter”
Glenmorangie A Tale of Winter is the 2nd release of their “A Tale of…” Limited Edition releases. I’m doing this backwards by reviewing this one first, but it has been subarctic temperatures in the Northeast and what better time to crack a bottle named after Winter than when you are shivering…
Talisker The Distillers Edition
Talisker’s The Distillers Edition finished in Amoroso casks from the Isle of Skye is another great entry-level peated scotch (relax peatheads, we will get to some heavier peated scotch as we go). People new to the peat category tend to think that peated scotch is all the same, however, even within the land of peatiness there are a number of different flavors such as medicinal, mossy, smoky, sulphuric, briny, etc. Talisker falls within the briny peat category and this particular release has the benefit of being finished in Amoroso sherry casks, adding another dimension to the picture.