I’ve said a number of times here that I’m into peat and really like exploring its use in Irish whiskey, so my apologies if this is the nth time you’ve read that. But it’s true, and I found myself placing and order and during my usual sample/mini inventory check to make shipping a bit more palatable I saw this and added it right to the cart. It’s a pretty interesting mix of spirit in this one, so I’m quite excited to try it.
The Legendary Dark Silkie, Ireland Blend, 46% ABV
Minutia: No age statement, but the website offers more information. Comprised of triple distilled peated single malt peated to 55ppm and left at 22ppm after distillation (really quite high) matured in Sherry casks, double distilled malt matured in bourbon barrels, and some grain whiskey matured in virgin oak casks.
Nose: Creamy banana, bit of apple. Cellar-y. A bit like a light beer/some malt/grain. Buttery Irish note.
Taste: Comes in with spices. Light licorice. Banana again.
Finish: Gone immediately, but returns. Chocolatey malt, butter, light nut. Medium length.
Quite nice, though I didn’t get a ton of smoke in this despite the intent and actual ppm of the peated malt. Other notes I’ve seen on it did all have it to some extent. Over the last few months, of the 38 most recent whiskies I’ve reviewed 36 were peated and only two of those were a Springbank/Kilkerran level of peat. It seems I need to retune my palate a bit. By the looks of it, the next few whiskies I have lined up for review are going to be peaty (though they should be some pretty big hitters and not get lost on habituation) until my Advent calendar, which could or could not have it given the day. But after that I plan on doing a 3 cask side by side in celebration of review #300 of Tobermories and then a Tobermory new make after that. I think I’ll bring in a couple Dalmore samples I have into the mix and some unpeated SMWS bottlings to unpeat my tongue and reserve peated drams only for evaluation and reviews and try to limit peat in my non-critical drinking for a while.
Score: 82
Musical Evocation: Draconian – “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”
The second of the Cairdeas releases I’ve tried after the 2017 Cask Strength Quarter Cask which I enjoyed a ton. That seems to be one of the less appreciated of them and people told me that if I liked that I’d really like some of the other releases so I picked this up at a shop when I saw it there.. I’ve seen mixed reviews on this between OK and great, and my familiarity with Fino casks is limited only to the Oban Distillers Edition which was a pour at a bar so I didn’t know entirely what to expect.
Laphroaig Cairdeas 2018 Fino Cask Finish, Islay Single Malt, 51.8% ABV
Minutia: Matured in 1st fill ex-bourbon casks and finished in ex-Fino casks, bottled at 51.8% to commemorate its release in 2018. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Starts oaky vanilla into medicinal smoke. The medicinal element is slight, at least for Laphroaig. You have to find it a bit rather than it’s usual boisterous presence. The smoke is far more in the leather/tobacco/vegetation family. Coastal air, not on the beach, or even adjacent, but a mile or so inland. Stone fruit syrup and creamy citrus notes come in revisiting after having had a sip.
Taste: Woody, light wine. Iodine. That’s really all I could pick out, but it’s bigger than just those notes suggest.
Finish: Musty, dry, then smoke. Big, tarry, ashy smoke. Not a complete explosion of it, but it really announces itself after a few seconds. An indiscriminate sweetness, perhaps a roasted nut which is sweet. Just shy of medium length.
Damn, I really like this. I was in love from the first whiff. I really regret not trying this sooner so I could have gotten a few more at MSRP. Based on how much people enjoyed it, I’m grateful took some user’s advice here about the Triple Wood Cairdeas to buy two if a shop had it. I have so much whisky to try I expect to have caught up with the Cairdeas releases at or around the time next year’s gets released so hopefully this doesn’t happen again.
I’m not entirely sure how I came across this, but I discovered it a while ago and I like peat and stout casks seemed interesting so I got a bottle. Shortly thereafter a Cask Strength version was released so I picked that up as well. Since I was doing a side by side of the Offerman Edition Lagavulins, one of which had a stout cask finish, I figured I’d do the same with these since it’s sort of similar and type them up and post them on the same day. So here we are, seeing how the ABV affected these two (though I don’t believe the process outside of bottling strength is entirely the same, they are similar enough).
Two Stacks Smoke & Mirrors, Ireland Single Malt, 48% ABV
Minutia: The age is undisclosed, but mostly everything else is there. Distilled by The Great Northern Distillery and comprised of 10% double distilled malt aged in 1st fill bourbon casks, 30% triple distilled peated malt aged in bourbon casks, and 60% triple distilled malt finished in ex-imperial oatmeal stout casks, bottled by Killowen Distillery in 2020. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn side by side with its cask strength cousin with and additional finish.
Nose: Light stone fruit, some banana. Beerish (but not hoppy).
Taste: Sweet, spice, green smoke. Stone fruit again. The white bit of a Charleston Chew (nougat I think?).
Finish: Dark chocolate on the lighter end of that type of chocolate. Some spice but less that in the taste. Bit of smoke. Medium-long.
Quite a decent dram. The lack of age statement (and age of the source distillery) suggest youth, but that doesn’t hurt it.
Score: 83
Two Stacks Smoke & Mirrors Imperial Coffee Finish Cask Strength, Ireland Single Malt, 56% ABV
Minutia: Nearly the same as above. The age is again undisclosed, but mostly everything else is there. Distilled by The Great Northern Distillery and comprised of the same ratio of malt and cask types, bottled by Killowen Distillery in 2021 with and outturn of 282 bottles of which this is number 65. This one features a malt finished in imperial stout casks from Dot Brew infused with Imbibe Coffee’s Kaleidoscope coffee beans. It’s unclear to me whether this finish is exclusive to 60% of the blend that saw the stout cask, or if it was all vatted together and finished in that cask. The outturn being about what you’d expect from a single cask suggests it’s possible the whole batch saw that cask after vatting, and the graphic on the label also indicates this. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn side by side with its cask strength cousin with and additional finish.
I like Lagavulin, and I like Nick Offerman, so when I heard of this I had reservations, but knowing Nick Offerman actively enjoys the product I had hopes it wouldn’t just be slapping a name on a bottle for marketing purposes. I’d have gotten it anyway, most likely, but fortunately the reviews suggested it was a worthwhile expression. Enough time transpired before I got to it to review that another edition was announced and released, that one with a finish. The finish was novel in that the casks hadn’t held another spirit, wine, or fortified wine, and happened to be in barrels which held one of the few beers I actually enjoy. So I decided to post the reviews as a side by side and see what impact the Guinness casks might have had.
Lagavulin 11 Offerman Edition, Islay Single Malt, 46% ABV
Minutia: Matured for 11 years. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn side by side with the Guinness Cask Finish edition.
Nose: Beachy. It’s a bit closed, with some effort there’s some firewood. It’s not wood, and it’s not smoke, but it’s like if you looked at your firewood and imagined how it would smell once burned.
Taste: Spicy at first, fades to reveal a floral woody character. Like tasting walking through blooming trees.
Finish: Bitter, smoky, earthy. Whatever balances those notes and stops them from being overpowering is masked by them. Some honey later, with spice appearing again. Long.
This is a decent dram, and at retail price it’s about right. I prefer a lot to this, but I prefer this to a bunch, as well. It was a bit more reserved than I’d have liked.
Minutia: Matured for 11 years, the last 4 months of which were spent in casks from the Baltimore Guinness brewery that previously held their stout. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn side by side with the standard edition.
Nose: Green wood, seaweed, driftwood, coffee beans (dark).
Taste: Smoky coffee with a stouty richness. Bit of spice and herbs. Slightly medicinal, but a background player.
Finish: A chocolatey stout note, bitter. It’s hard to describe without putting it in the context of the finish of a stout or a rich, chocolately porter. Long.
This is really neat, it’s fun to taste beer in a whisky. The color was lighter, which surprised me, as I’d have thought the casks would be a little more active in that realm, but they must have held the stout a number of times before being used for this. Definite influence of them, however. Definite stouty notes in a vacuum, more obvious when done AB.
Score: 84
Musical Evocation: Alestorm featuring Lady Gaga – “Magnetic Telephone”
The stout finish is nice. I want to see more of it, and more less-than-traditional casks experiemented with (looking at you, SWA). For me, the more gimmicky one was better by a touch, and neither were unpleasant nor revelatory. I wouldn’t hate it if different versions became a (semi)regular thing, as it’s enjoyable and a neat concept if future editions explored similar territory, just as long as they don’t end up beating a dead horse with releases being too regular. These were released about a year and a half apart, and that’s absolutely as regular as I’d want it. Supposing it did become a somewhat regular release, every two or three years for as long as Nick Offerman is culturally relevant would be pretty nice.
I’m a big fan of peated Scotch, and enjoyed Connemara and other Irish whiskeys, so any chance I get to try one I’ll go for. I particularly enjoy when the Irish triple distill their malt in the fashion traditional to the island with the barley having been malted with peat so I was excited to get into this one.
Hinch Peated Single Malt, Ireland Single Malt, 43% ABV
Minutia: Bottled in 2019 as part of ‘The Time Collection’. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Smoke with a fresh quality. Citrus, apple peels. Butter cookie/creamy/dough.
Taste: Smoke in the lightly beachy area. Slight kick. Grows rich and earthy.
Finish: Slightly warming. Slight bitter note to the smoke, a woody quality. Medium.
Quite a nice whisky, the nothing exciting. It reminds a bit of the younger heavily peated Kilkerrans though it’s not quite as thick. I’m very interested in higher proof peated spirit from this distillery, as well as any older stock they might release one day.
A while ago I was placing an order on whiskysite (when they still shipped here) and my usual process is to run through the sample inventory and tack on enough to make the shipping more palatable. In this instance, this dram was categorized under “Other Islay” and I wasn’t paying enough attention to notice that it (almost certainly) wasn’t. But I have the sample, so here’s my review of it. Maybe it’s a worthwhile blend.
Nose: Sweetness like a cheap wine (not a $10 bottle, like Night Train or Thunderbird). You can detect a bit of raisin in there. It does not really invite you back to nose it again, and if it did you might decline.
Taste: Red fruit medicinal syrup mixed with a bit of wine and whisky. Vague honey that’s a bit off, like if you tried honey and it wasn’t the kind you like.
Finish: Similar, short. A bit of malty/nuttiness lingers and resurges a bit longer and it’s not too bad.
This is rather uninteresting to me as a fan of smoke and other strong flavors. Nothing was outright offensive, but it remained far from appealing. Unfortunately, other than getting the notes for this review, I wasn’t compelled to have any more. Not an immediate drain pour or anything, but a good chance it gets poured down the drain after being left out unfinished. If it’s cheap enough in the markets where it’s available, it’s probably ok to use in cocktails, it could even be an asset there if a whisky with a sweeter profile is desired. The lingering bit on the finish saves it a bit as it’s more pleasant than the rest of the dram.
The 2018 release was just wonderful, so it wouldn’t take much convincing to try this one, but at my current budget and bottle-storage limits there was no compulsion to try every batch. The less-than-usual cask make intrigued me enough to try this one, however.
Longrow 18 (2020), Campbeltown Single Malt, 46% ABV
Minutia: Matured in 25% bourbon, 20% rum, and 55% Sherry casks for 18 years and bottled on August 12, 2020 yielding a batch of 4,300 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Pleasant smoke, a humid but dusty storage area, toffee/caramel, Russian rye. There’s really a lot going on here, and those are the only notes I can put to words.
Taste: Fruit gives way to cardboard, to bitter chocolate and back again.
Finish: Sweet, metallic, slight smoke with medicinal touch, sweet citrus. A bit of bitterness. An overall ‘mechanical’ feel.
Man, a real treat. Nothing wrong in the mouth, but the nose is just more interesting. This is a dram you could have over a course of an entire evening and barely take a sip. It’s complex, but there’s a subtlety to the complexity that is quite nice. There’s an overall sweeter tone to each of the elements noted above that don’t intrinsically sound sweet, I suspect this is the rum influence. This distillery continues to impress, and this is no exception. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the 2018 release, but I did enjoy it quite a lot.
Score: 90
Musical Evocation: Beast in Black – “Blind and Frozen”
