Review: Matusalem 30yr VORS (cream) sherry, 20.5% abv, Gonzalez Byass

pre-Thanksgiving preparation

Now that the turkey's soaking in brine and some extra dishes have been dug out, the only thing left to do is to start testing out the sherry, because that's just what the pilgrims would have done.

This is an odd one. It has an age statement. And its classification as a "cream" sherry is nearly microscopic, on the back label: "Cream, Elaborado con Oloroso y P.X." But basically it's an oloroso that's been sweetened up a little.

nose: stunningly dense -- raisins and dates, almonds, lightly roasted coffee. but it's just so dense that everything is in there: apples, molasses, toasted cinnamon bread, clover honey, roasted vegetables. quince paste, tonic.

palate: wow, sweet, then coffee and ginger, then back to raisins and prunes and molasses and cloves. I swear there's some anise in there, and tar. the whole effect is that it's so dense with dried fruit and spices that it's slightly medicinal.

finish: not powerful but lingers forever, a bit of wood comes out, but mostly more of the same.


score: super high!

Review #130: Bruichladdich Bere Barley 2nd edition 2006/2013. 50% abv, OB, 15600 bottles

I like it how they put "unpeated" on the bottle ...

... as if it were necessary to specify all the things that something is not. They also tell you that this comes from Kynagarry Farm, which is on Islay, and of course they also tell you the variety of barley, which is the big attraction. The bottle doesn't mention that this is a travel retail special.

I'm glad that bere barley is being tried out -- it doesn't make sense to me, at any rate, to use high yield varieties if there's any improvement to be made by using older ones. The barley doesn't seem to be a big part of the price of a 6 or 7 year old $80 whisky. I hope some barrels manage to sit around for a while.

nose: powerful fruit and custard. There really seems to be a lot of American oak influence, actually. But there a nice fruit salad, some wildflowers, malt, and hay mixed in with the vanilla cream and cinnamon toast. The apples stand out most, along with some thyme and bees' balm. It's striking how floral this seems for such a young whisky.

palate: a little gristly and herbaceous, although with the same sweetness. I feel I can taste more of the bare bere whisky -- dates and nettles and pepper and gravel join the apples. It's a little dry and oaky, too -- are they sure this was only in barrel for 6 or so years?

finish: it bites a little, and then there's a wave of sweetness.


This is approachable, delicious stuff, but I'm not sure what I'm getting. Is this about the barley or the wood? I suppose it doesn't matter.

score: 87

Review #129: Benriach 27yr 1983/2013, 48.9%, OB, Batch 10, Peated/Virgin American Oak Finish, C#7188, 257 bottles

some of these finishes seem kind of dumb

This is from Batch 10 of Benriach's single cask bottlings, which I guess is already a year old. It seems dumb to put beautiful 27 yr old whisky "Virgin American Oak," but at least it's not tawny port. It's probably best to think of this not as adulteration, but as capturing whatever was lost by not blending different barrels, while still preserving the distinctness of the single cask. Hah!

nose: actually, this is pretty brilliant. The fruit is covered over a little bit, but it's still there: ripe apples and squishy plums with a cherry or two thrown in. Mixed up with that is a wave of bourbonny flavors: banana, vanilla toffee, a little bit of coconut and oak spice. The mixture almost feels like a richly sherried malt, but with a demerara sweetness. The peat is a nice phenolic accent: it's definitely there, but everything else is overpowering.

palate: the peat comes out little more, and feels a little acrid at first. there's still lots of plummy, sweet fruit, though, along with a slightly more subtle apple orchard and completely unsubtle vanilla candy. maybe a little too sweet, but it all holds together well.

finish: the peat develops into a more organic range of flavors, and then a wave of bananas foster washes everything else away. then the peat comes back. and the fruit. then the peat again.


I feel like I'm being tricked here: just a sneaking suspicion that they took a mediocre cask and made it seem like it's really tasty. I'll fall for it, though.

score: 89

Review #128: Ledaig 6yr 2008/2014, Van Wees, 46% abv, Cask #800014, ex-bourbon, 433 bottles

off to a different island

I ran out of Nikka whiskies, so I guess it's time to move over to Mull. I guess I've not yet reviewed a Ledaig, which is a peated Tobermory, which I guess I've also not yet reviewed. Tobermory is known for tasting funny, but Ledaig is known for really successful peaters at a young age, which is good, because this one is young and was cheap.

Nose: a nice stinky, earthy peat with lots of gasoline, bacon, salt spray, and wet wool. There's some canola oil in the background, and the whole thing gradually settles on lemon wedges, wet rocks, and resinous smoke, with just a touch of vanilla. Except for just a touch of bare ethanol and some angry pears, everything seems suitably mature.

Palate: Oily, phenolic, zesty, and sweet. I expected a big letdown, but this is a pretty rich palate. Sweeter than I expected, maybe, with some new rubber tire and barley notes.

Finish: sweet, peaty, long


No big revelations here, but this is just good, richly-flavored peated whisky. Great bargain.


score: 86

Review #127: Miyagikyo 9yr 2002/2012, 62%, OB, Refill butt #101127, 517 bottles

another Nikka, but not the standard bottling

I probably should try a Bushmill's, in honor of Diageo's recent divestment, which seems like something weird to me. But I've been so pleased with the other Nikka whiskies, I thought I'd see if the streak could continue one more day. This one's from Miyagikyo, but it's a single cask bottling. It seemed ridiculously expensive at the time, and still does, but now of course it would cost more and it wouldn't be available.

Nose: nice thick, chewy caramel/toffee, with a little cinnamon. some butter and apple peels and gravel. lots of freshly charred oak, surprisingly. takes a while to develop. a bunch of parsley and then some candied fruits slowly emerge: oranges mostly. A couple drops of water makes everything a little more approachable.

Palate: This is a mouthful. Intense blast of oranges, raisins, poached pears, oak juice, arugula, vanilla, honey, and marzipan. Not a lot of subtlety here, but I didn't really sherry fruit could be so intense.

Finish: weird -- it starts off on a slightly gingery, mentholated oak, and then a sweet, fruity vanilla overwhelms it. Didn't think that was possible. Very long.


I think I might the Yoichi better -- esp. at a third the price -- but this is a big experience, so we'll go with the same score.

Score: 87

Review #126: Taketsuru 12yr, 40%, OB

the last one was good ...

I was so pleased by the Yoichi 10yr that I'd like to keep going with Nikka whiskies. Unfortunately, I only have a couple to choose from, but next up is this Taketsuru. Taketsuru is named after the Nikka's founder, and I believe it's blend of malts from the two Nikka distilleries. Only 40%, ugh. Why did they water this one down so much? I think they bottle everything else -- even the older and younger Taketsurus -- at higher proof. Maybe they had a good reason.

nose: apple, pears, sherry fruit, and fudge. a few crushed leaves. some malt and charred oak, too. very clear and distinct flavors. not a lot of them, but they're very nice, as if they're taken from the handbook of nice whisky flavors. patience lets some custard and lilac come out, but just a little.

palate: creamy-chocolatey pears, and lots of smoke. the smoke is a big surprise: it gives it some weight despite the low strength. Some rather herbal wood, maybe even a bit of cinnamon.

finish: not powerful but curiously long -- all the nice sweet, creamy flavors mingle with the smoke and wood.


I thought the nose was good but maybe a little boring, but it actually kept getting more interesting. It's still a little too light. I don't think it's as good as the Yoichi, but another pleasant surprise.

score: 85

Review #125: Nikka Whisky "Yoichi" Single Malt 10yr, 45% abv, OB

back to reviewing

Taking a break from pre-Thanksgiving housecleaning to get my senses back. This is a young-ish malt from Yoichi, Nikka's original distillery. According to Nikka, "Yoichi produces rich, peaty and masculine malt," maybe because they direct-fire their stills. I'm not sure how I feel about masculine malt; it might be slightly threatening.

This post is really helpful in case you, like me, have trouble keeping track of Japanese malts even though there's only about 5 distilleries and 8 or so labels. On another occasion I'll have to find another one that explains the difference between the various Nikka pure malts.

hmm. has a lot of color for a 10-yr-old.

nose: apples and lots of dried fruit, with peat in the background. it's way more fruit-forward than I expected, but also winter squash, honey-roasted nuts, almond paste, and tiny notes of something tropical and floral. the peat starts out as just little bits of soot, but then slowly opens out to become woodier and richer. (I'd say "bacon-ier," if that were a word.)

palate: a little thin on the palate, although the peat really takes a bite here. a light wave of fruit followed by a mouthful of soot. A little salty. Some tropical woods.

finish: honey and dark smoky peat linger.

(temporarily empty glass smells like roast beast smoked over fruitwood. and vanilla candy.)

The nose was absolute genius: it felt assembled out of parts, on one hand, but just fit together seamlessly. Develops very nicely, too. The palate didn't quite live up to that, but this is still surprisingly good whisky.


score: 87

This makes more sense now

Now that I've seen this:

anorak

1. British: A person obsessively interested in a thing or topic that doesn't seem to warrant such attention.

This makes more sense now:

Finally my whisky is teaching me some English.

Unnumbered review: wine gums

it's been a bad week

So, I have a cold, and although I still have my sense of smell, I think, I really don't feel like drinking whisky. (I do, but I also don't.) So here's something I've been wondering about: what are wine gums. They're mentioned here and here and here, for example, but I don't think I quite get the concept. I'm not sure that it makes sense to open a bag of candy in the aftermath of Halloween, but here goes ...

they're weird-tasting gummi bears that aren't bear-shaped. They're maybe a little firmer than gummi bears, so maybe a little closer to movie-theater candy. But they're the basic corn syrup/gelatin/wax composite that we all love.

the red ones seem to have the word "claret" printed on them. and also the yellow ones and the green ones and the orange ones. ok, so the words don't correlate with color. some of them have "sherry" and "port" and "champagne" and "burgundy" printed on them, too. the rest have brand insignia.

the red ones seem to have a very faint berry/cherry flavor, regardless of what's printed on them. the yellow ones are lemony, the green ones have I guess a lime flavor, the black ones have a weird grapey flavor, and the orange ones are orangey. I like the black ones best. It must be a weird historical accident that they name their gummi bears using English names for French wines. (clearly God wanted gummi candies to be bear- or worm-shaped.)

this has been a pretty uninspiring tasting, but I can see why one would use it as a tasting note: it's a kind of direct fruitiness that isn't fruit, along with some waxiness. there's also a bite to these: I notice that the ingredients list "vegetable extracts (black carrot, spinach, stinging nettle, turmeric)" and I can feel it a bit.

well, that's that. maybe next time it'll be salmiak or speculoos or gentian eau de vie.

Review #124: Greenore 10yr 2000/2011, OB, 52.9% abv, cask #87

shamrock not thistle

To Ireland today with a single-cask grain whiskey from the Cooley distillery. I think this is the first grain whiskey in the TastingDome, but I haven't really been paying attention.

So what is this stuff? Made from corn (plus a little malt, has to be), distilled in a column still, and aged in bourbon barrels (probably from Beam). I just read that Irish grain can be distilled up to 94.8% off the still -- that's more vodka than bourbon. I don't know about this one, though.

Nose: there's a wall of naked spirit in front, but behind that there's some nice fruit and crème caramel and biscuity notes. It's a fruit cocktail, with pears and peaches and pineapple and maybe a tangerine. Water doesn't do much, but time helps it open up.

Palate: very very creamy -- the alcohol bites for a second, and a there's a little orange pith, but then there's just waves and waves of sweet vanilla, with a little caramel and shortbread. With water, oddly, it becomes more bourbony.

Finish: a little vegetal, and then more of the same. It feels a bit hot, but the flavors are all there.


I'm impressed by this. I'd credit the barrel for all the flavors, but I didn't think that Beam had barrels this nice. It competes well with single pot still, certainly, if you like those flavors. Indeed, it's probably a purer expression of the fruit cocktail + vanilla candy formula, if that's what you're looking for.

score: 82

Review #123: Longmorn 26yr bottled 2013, Cadenhead Small Batch, 49.5%, Bourbon Hogsheads, 402 bottles

this one's a little pricey

It wasn't too long ago that there were a lot of (good) 1992 Longmorns running around for cheap; now the going rate on late-80's Speyside whisky is almost $200. (And the Longmorn OB is both expensive and dull.) Oh well. This is from Cadenhead's "Small Batch" line, in which "Cadenhead" receives no apostrophe; it is probably from a couple of bourbon hogsheads distilled in 1987, but nothing on the label gives that away. The label does call the distillery "Longmorn-Glenlivet," probably because that's what it said on the barrels. It's a little reminder of how recently "Glenlivet" practically meant "Speyside" and everyone used it in their distillery name.

Nose: very juicy fruit: cider apples and pears yes, but also maybe some strawberries. Plus some straw and crushed leaves. Lots of malt. There's still a little sharp herbaceousness, but at the same time some ultra-mature flowers and candy (both the fruit-drop kind and the buttery kind) and perfume -- very nice together.

Palate: again the herbaceousness, but then a blast of apples and a couple greengages, some buttery toffee and some drying oak. This strikes me as about what I'd expect from Longmorn. Compared to the nose, this was a little pedestrian, but the dryness gives it a nice body.

Finish: long but not terribly distinct: oaky and slightly peppery on top of the apples and the toffee.


Extraordinary nose, and then turns back into a typical Longmorn. Typical Longmorn is still pretty good.


score: 88