Two Stacks Smoke & Mirrors Side by Side

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.

Color: Amber; 0.7.

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.

Color: Chestnut, Oloroso Sherry; 1.2.

Nose: About the same as above, but also with green wood and coffee.

Taste: Malt, nut, honey into spice. Smoky custard. Bit of the stone fruit found in the nose.

Finish: Big chocolate right away, coffee, smoky malt. Long.

The strength is evident, but not too much, and that chocolate note in the finish really takes it to the next level.

Score: 85