Coming back with another bourbon I figured I’d take a shot on after I found B3.5 to be rather unique. The name evokes pleasant images, but does seem like a hard one to live up to. Does it?
Rock Town 4, 2015 Vintage, Scotch Malt Whisky Society B3.7, Arkansas Bourbon, 58.7% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on June 19, 2015 and matured in a charred new oak barrel for 4 years yielding 195 bottles. Rather than getting a flavor profile that malt and grain whiskies get, this is part of the grey label spirits line named “Halloween night at the rodeo”. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn, with water added later on.
Nose: Wood, molasses, root/birch beer. Water does give it a “Halloweeny” sweetness.
Taste: Spicy, sweet and bitter come in. A bit like candy corn, actually. Woody with water.
Finish: Medium-long. Rye bread into root beer. Much spice with water.
I like it similarly to B3.5 but it feels less unique to me, and lacks the musty quality I enjoyed most about it. Despite it being very hard to get to the nose through the ethanol, water did not really improve it. It was easier to nose, but less pleasant on the palate. Kudos on the cask selection for a Halloween release, as it did touch some notes thereabout.
A fun sample I had to pick up being from a birth year distillation. As a peat fan, Bunnahabhain isn’t my favorite distillery out there, but the two bottles I have distilled in 1989 and matured for just shy of 30 years did not disappoint. I’m glad to have another opportunity to try one.
Bunnahabhain 27, 1989 Vintage, The Whisky Agency, Islay Single Malt, 44.9% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in 1989 and matured in a hogshead for 27 years and bottled in 2017 yielding 247 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Far from complex, and very light, that isn’t bad. This doesn’t tickle the powerful, smoky desires I tend to have for a whisky, but it’s still very nice. A great choice when you want an unchallenging but still bright and rewarding.
Score: 81
Musical Evocation: Bob Dylan – “Moonshiner” (but YouTube doesn’t have that recording so here’s The Tallest Man on Earth’s)
I’m not the biggest bourbon fan in the world – I have a preference for the flavors from malted barley, particularly when it’s peated – but I’ve been known to enjoy it from time to time. Since it’s not my go to, I haven’t had much opportunity to try a lot of it beyond what people share with me or what a bartender poured when they ran out of the Laphroaig I ordered and thought it was a suitable/similar substitute. I’ve probably tried a dozen or two different ones and generally found them too sweet to truly enjoy but never so bad I couldn’t drink it. I was rarely paying much attention to them until an old school kind of bar had some and the bartender gave us a couple taste pours to decide which we wanted a glass of after enjoying our conversation with him about whisky. While I wasn’t foolish enough to think all bourbon literally tastes the same, the variety from those few sample pours surprised me (more than the variety, how much I liked a couple surprised me more). So between that experience and the descriptions given during the preview tasting for this cask I decided to go for it and try a bottle.
Rock Town 5, 2014 Vintage, Scotch Malt Whisky Society B3.5, Arkansas Bourbon, 59.8% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on May 1, 2014 from a mashbill of 82% Arkansas corn, 9% Arkansas wheat, and 9% malted barley, matured in a new American oak charred barrel for 5 years yielding 186 bottles. Rather than getting a flavor profile that malt and grain whiskies get, this is part of the grey label spirits line named “Bacon jam session”. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Bitter, wood/spice, musty/dunnage, root beer. Water leaves very little in the nose.
Taste: Sweet and then spicy – very. Bitter, woody. Spiciness/heat toned down with water.
Finish: Bitter, rye bread. Quite long finish even after water.
While I’m quite experience with whisky, I wonder whether a relative inexperience with bourbon hinders my ability to precisely pick out flavors. Anyway, whisky style aside, this is one of the more unique whiskies I’ve had. Very little of this is what I imagine when I think “bourbon.” It’s there, but more than others I’ve had isn’t stuck in that bubble, and there’s a general flavor to it that’s not something I’ve come across yet in any whisky. I’m glad I went for a bottle, and it’s further opened me up to other bourbons, though I don’t think I’ll be diving to deep into that world (for a while, anyway).
Score: 81
Musical Evocation: John Frusciante – “The Past Recedes”
Out of nowhere a bottle this old became available for samples when I was placing an order so I took advantage. Like probably a lot of you, my sample backlog is rather sizeable with a significant amount of whiskies I can’t wait to try, but this one get itself toward the front of the list better than many others have. It got toward the top anyway, but another small break from peat helped it get even further up. A nice old Bruichladdich from old Bruichladdich, I wonder how I’ll like it.
Bruichladdich 20 Third Edition, Islay Single Malt, 46% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in 1985 and matured for 20 years in ex-bourbon casks with a finish in Malmsey Madeira hogsheads and bottled in 2005 (I’ve read the finish was 5 days). Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Taste: Fruity with spice/bite. Honey. Reminds of Longrow 18 without the smoke.
Finish: Similar sweetness, dry, oak. Medium-long.
This has a much more Sherried feel than it really is with only a week in those casks. I really enjoyed having this one in my mouth, particularly because it reminded me so much of Longrow 18 which is one of my favorite expressions. It felt very similar with a tiny little bit of bite on it, almost as if the smoke in the Longrow took away the bite, or made the bite feel more at home and thus less noticeable. A really nice dram I’m glad to have tried.
Bit of a story with this one. A while back I had interest in getting away from peat for a while as well as trying out pot still whiskey. I got a bottle of Redbreast 15 and ordered a sample of the 21. Unfortunately, there was an inventory error with no plans to restock the samples so they refunded that and shipped out the rest. I was disappointed because I didn’t want to shell out for a bottle just to try it, but life goes on. Then placing another order a while later they had some in stock again and they made it out to me. Anyway, here’s my review of it.
Redbreast 21, Ireland Single Pot Still, 46% ABV
Minutia: Matured for 21 years in ex-bourbon and ex-Oloroso Sherry casks. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Musty, leathery Sherry. Coffee beans in chocolate. Vanilla/caramel. Dark fruit dances in between these other aromas.
Taste: Wood, spice, fruit pops in, takes a tropical turn. Distinctly like tropical Skittles, whatever the light blue package was called. Mango and peach are the flavors that stick out most.
Finish: Welcomes in the bitter parts of the nose over the Skittles. Long, only powerful for medium length.
This is a nice take on the style. I like the element of tropical fruit it took me a bit to tease out, but once I did it was very present. It’s got a nice light quality to it, as well.
While I prefer the peated expressions from Bunnahabhain, I do like the others enough to want to try them when I get a chance, so I added this to an order. The color and ABV on this one are pretty extreme, it’s one I was looking forward to more than most other unpeated expressions. As I write this up it’s amusing I’m posting this almost on the anniversary of its distillation.
Bunnahabhain 11, 2009 Vintage, The Ultimate, Islay Single Malt, 67% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on March 17, 2009 and matured in a 1st fill Sherry butt for 11 years and bottled on April 17, 2020 yielding 589 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: General fruit into a wisp of smoke settling into dark fruit. Classic Bunnahabhain nutty malt. Sherry. Toffee comes in after some water.
Taste: Very hot. Sherry. Oak. It’s a bit oakier with some water.
Finish: After a quick fading of heat, coffee, leather, spiced fruit. Medium-long.
This is pretty nice, but that proof is tough to get past. It’s not overwhelming, but it is quite hot and that makes if difficult to taste much else. The water didn’t help a ton, there, and I was worried about adding much more and overdiluting it. Fortunately, the nose doesn’t suffer the same fate and burn the nostrils like you might expect. A Sherried dram lover would really appreciate this one, I think.
Another of Waterford’s early releases, this being made from organic barley and the first (that I’ve had, anyway) to use barley sourced from multiple farms. At the time, the volume of barley needed for a fermentation was too high for a single farm to produce using organic methods (or at least the yields from the part of the farm using those methods).
Waterford Gaia 1.1, Ireland Single Malt, 50% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on September 4-13, 2016 from organic Overture barley from a handful farms fermented with Mauri distiller’s yeast for 136 hours and matured in 1st fill and virgin American oak, French oak, and Vin Doux Naturel casks for 3 years, 9 months, and 20 days before bottling on August 24, 2020 producing 24,000 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Waterford’s distillery style is still here again, and the banana stands out more here than in other I remember. I’m not sure what organic barley does for whisky, and there isn’t enough here to show me, but I’m interested enough to try a single farm origin expression down the line when they have it and it’s had time to age and compare it to a similarly aged non-organic expression.
I picked this up when placing and order and figured it would be neat to have an expression from around the time they opened back up as most of what I’ve had has been fairly new. Not much more to say going into this one.
Bruichladdich Waves, Islay Single Malt, 46% ABV
Minutia: Matured for 7 years in ex-bourbon and ex-Madeira casks. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Dark fruit. Something almost smoky that turns into apple.
Taste: Salty malt, a bit like cookie dough. Subtle spice, green wood.
Finish: Smoky, dry, a bit of bitter grape. White grape juice, maybe?
Hmm, if I didn’t know any better I’d say this was peated. The smokiness on the nose wasn’t quite smoke and was subtle enough where it makes sense just being an unpeated whisky that gets close to being smoky, but on the finish it was pretty substantial at the start. I don’t think they were making Port Charlotte or Octomore when this was distilled, otherwise I’d guess it was from a run right after a batch of either of those. Neat to see a flavor like that from Bruichladdich.
Another of Waterford’s early single farm origin releases, this being another one that’s a bit older than most of the ones I’ve had already and is a fourth farm source.
Waterford Sheestown 1.2, Ireland Single Malt, 50% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on June 17-25, 2016 from Irina barley from Sheestown farm harvested August 18, 2015 - fermented with Mauri distiller’s yeast for 131.5 hours and matured in 1st fill and virgin American oak, French oak, and Vin Doux Naturel casks for 4 years and 9 days before bottling on September 28, 2020 producing 30,000 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Doughy, buttery cookie, something else. That something is kind of like honey.
Taste: Fruit like pear and bitter orange. Malty, spicy, doughy/creamy.
Finish: That same citrus with some malty/spicy honey. Medium.
Waterford’s distillery style is still there, but the fruit on this one is indeed different. Other times it’s been tropical and/or banana, but not here. This is the first have had from this variety of barley, as well as this farm, so I can’t say which contributed to that. This is a bit shy of the slightly older Ballymorgan 1.2, but having had 4 years in the cask, this is quite good and again indicative of how nice this will be once the distillery’s been operational long enough to bottle properly aged whisky.
Finally getting to my first ever swap to review. Thanks to robbentheking over at speak-easy for the swap on this one. I haven’t had the chance to try an SCN bottle yet and they seem to be on the better received end of bottlers from what I’ve seen online. I couldn’t pass up and opportunity to try this Ledaig I had already wanted to purchase but could find available for shipping to me.
Ledaig 13 2005 Vintage, Single Cask Nation, Island (Mull) Single Malt, 57.1% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in October 2005 and matured in 2nd fill Sherry but #900165 for 13 years and bottled in March 2019 yielding 575 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Man, this was excellent. It was almost like falling in love with Ledaig all over again as I felt similarly to the first time I ever had it. A lovely dirtiness to this dram that makes me thing of the Alexander Murray 20 I had, but whatever that was missing to bring it over the edge to loving it, this has (or whatever this has, that lost).
