West Cork Glengarriff Series Peat Charred Cask & Bog Oak Charred Cask

I’m not sure how I came across these, but I learned of them and they appealed to me. I like peat/smoke, so anything to do with that will have some of my interest, and this experiment was interesting enough. With all the time in the world at the start of the pandemic, I took on woodworking as a hobby and bog oak happened to be a material I enjoyed working with, then I come across this other use for it. Anyway, I decided to review them and post them together (just collected in a post, not a proper side-by-side). The labels say cask strength, but that was an error as it was the initial plan but that was changed and they forgot to correct it. The experiment is that they are triple distilled single malt (unpeated barley) aged for about 3 years in Sherry casks, and then finished 4-6 months in casks which were virgin oak and used a novel material to burn in the charring process, peat for one and bog oak for the other (bog oak is wood which has been preserved in a peat bog protecting it from decay and is in the process of fossilizing, and specimens are often thousands of years old).

West Cork Glengarriff Series Peat Charred Cask, Ireland Single Malt, 43% ABV

Minutia: Aged as described above (finishing cask charred with peat). Enjoyed neat in a Tuath glass.

Color: Deep copper; 1.0.

Nose: Butter cookie, toasted marshmallow, banana.

Taste: Gummy bear, taffy, malt.

Finish: Malt, apple. Peanut late sometimes. Medium-short.

It’s a nice light Irish whiskey, but I’m not sure what influence the cask had that a regular virgin oak cask wouldn’t have had. It’s certainly not smoky, and I don’t get anything similar to what peated malt gives.

Score: 77

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West Cork Glengarriff Series Bog Oak Charred Cask, Ireland Single Malt, 43% ABV

Minutia: Aged as described above (finishing cask charred with bog oak). Enjoyed neat in a Tuath glass.

Color: Deep copper; 1.0.

Nose: Malty, light apple.

Taste: Very nutty, almond and hazelnut at least, spice comes in later.

Finish: Toasty, coffee grounds. Choclate later. Medium-short.

Huh. After the other one didn’t seem to have any influence from peat and with them being so close in color, I fully expected an experience much more similar to that with the peat-charred cask. However they were a fair bit different, so I guess the cask charring did something, just not what you might expect.

Score: 79

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A fun experiment resulting in an enjoyable enough product, and the price is quite nice. A good series of expressions.