Silk City is a distillery local to me, and it happens to be right next door to a brewery known as Ghost Hawk. A buddy had a gig at Ghost Hawk not too long ago, and since I favor cider when it comes to non-spirit drinks, I popped over for a whisky. I noticed a whisky they had distilled from quinoa and asked about it and the fella gave me a sample and told me a while back they ended up with a bunch of quinoa and when they remembered it they decided to make a whisky. It was pretty good, but he said the quinoa was hell on the stills and they’d never do it again. He also told me they had a collaboration with Ghost Hawk releasing very soon where they were given what would have been turned into Ghost Hawk’s ‘Ravendark’ stout to use as the mashbill for this release. I popped back over to Ghost Hawk, ordered one, and decided I’d definitely be wanting to try the whisky version of it, and went back to grab one on release about a week later.
Silk City Straight Malt Whiskey, American Single Malt, 45% ABV
Minutia: Distilled from the ‘Ravendark’ mashbill and matured for 2 years in American oak casks yielding 225 375ml bottles. This is bottle number 132. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Finish: Malty, Virginia tobacco, chocolate malt. Banana returns later. Med-long.
Really nice, and quite unique from what I’ve had thus far. Silk City, whiskey-wise, primarily makes bourbon, but I continue to be impressed by what they make out of malt. I’m really looking forward to any future malt releases from them, particularly if the malt was smoked at all.
I bought this quite a while ago so don’t remember what I was hoping for with it, but I believe I was after more ‘farmy’ type notes when I purchased it. Also, it’s neat how with the SMWS you can get to try a single cask from a distillery that’s basically a blend component.
Really quite nice, but fails to live up to the nose. Not because of anything bad, the nose is just that good. It’s pretty much what you want from a peated and Sherried whisky.
Another birthday, another birth year bottle. I picked this up at auction a while back after I decided I wanted 5 birth year bottles to have a different one each year for five years and revisit each every fifth year. And fortuitously so, as this particular bottle has skyrocketed in price relative to the already high price I paid for it. Anyway, this is the fourth of those bottles and I’ve really been looking forward to it.
Springbank 12 1989 Rum Wood, Campbeltown Single Malt, 54.6% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in 1989, matured with a finish in ex-rum casks, and bottled in April 2002. 1 of 5700 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Tropical and red fruit. Green wood. Bit feinty. An overall malty undertone to it all. With water: molasses, brown sugar, honey, vanilla.
Taste: Springbanky, feinty malt. Spices, bittersweet. Some smokiness. With water: lower spice, different bitter.
Finish: Spiced Springbank. Malt, coffee beans. Long. With water: spicier.
It’s nice, and definitely a Springbank, but I wondered whether it was a bit stronger than I like, thus the notes including with water. Overall I’d say it did not help. Still, it was good, but if anyone is thinking about this at auction, pass on the price it’s going for. This is one I’m rather looking forward to in five years to compare the sample I poured this year to a bottle that’s been opened for five years.
Score: 84
Musical Evocation: Alestorm – “That Famous Ol’ Spiced”
It's a bit late in the game, but I forgot to post it earlier this year. This post is about the Top 10 Whiskies I tried over the course of 2021. It is all about when I took the notes, not when the whiskies were released, and they are in no particular order.
