Uigeadailish Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Holidays! Ardbeg Uigadail is my choice for the Christmas Dram, due to it’s smoke, peat and sherry taste. A wonderful combination and a great dram any time of the year.

Rye Rye time for Rye Juuri (Root) of Kyrö

I didn’t go through square one here. I have been following news about the Finnish Kyrö Distillery Company and even got to taste their one dram earlier (the #, the story can be found here ) . I think it was not a good step to skip first two stops. The good is that I’ll have now a fairly good guess where this dram is heading. The bad, is that the starting point is not that satisfying.

This is about the unaged root. This is the root for whisky that is coming out 2017, about three years from now. This is the stuff they put into barrels and then start a long wait. Or actually, I don’t think this one is being put to barrels since this is only 46.3% in the boost. It’s perhaps missing around 20 %-units of it’s strength. But this is what we’ve got. It is a small batch product, made with passion and love. And they use rye of course. Basically, this is a foundation for something very Finnish.

The nose is not into my shelf of books. It has rye, yes but also rawness and dullness of the moonshine. I can’t say it is pleasing – far from it. But since we are bold we sip it.

There is a big amount of rye in the taste. Lots of it. And also brutal rawness of booze and moonshine. It feels like a fresh booze that has been filtered through a rye bread. It will curl lots of hair in your body. If this were full strength, I don’t think there would be any hair left since they’d be running. I do like strong vodka. Strong whisky. Strong taste. But I am frank and I say, that this is not in my favorites.

Then why do I taste it again then? Since I’ve tasted the # hush hush and I know where this root is heading. It has a lots of rye and it has a story. And if you drink enough of it, you will eventually like it.

I am waiting for their next versions… and especially the final product. This tells you that much. You should taste this – just to get the comparison.  And when compared to many whiskies – you can taste the rye a long afterwards the last sip.

I also have heard, that people like to use this in drinks to get a intriguing (in a good way) taste of rye.

Bowmore Small Batch , a Bourbon Cask matured dram

The whisky scene is liek a transforming and living entity. More and more drams come out from distilleries and more of those are being sold around the world. The demand for new and exciting packages is high. Thus, the distilleries are producing a lots of limited editions, rare bottling and small batches. Bowmore has done many travel retail / low cost bottling in history, so this is not a surprise.
In their web page they say the following “Exclusively matured in first and second fill ex bourbon casks, then blissfully married together, Small Batch exhibits the best qualities of both. First-fill bourbon offers delicious vanilla sweetness, subtle spices and bourbon oak smoke to complement Bowmore's gentle peaty smokiness, while the second-fill cask enhances Bowmore's fresh fruity complexity and showcases its trademark honey and creamy malt character. “ The source: http://www.bowmore.com/whiskies/small-batch/
This dram is aimed as a entry level drink. You can tell it by a price (low), exclusive looking package and words like balanced. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, except perhaps that if you get deep into whiskies you will encounter a lots of these. Some maybe good too.
The nose has a lots of Bowmore in it. The lemon pepper and slight peatiness (on my scale) combined with spices. The spiciness comes out strongly here but the nose could be more balanced.
The palate strikes with salt, citrus and spice. There is some peat too, but I can’t say this is a soft dram. It has a strong taste, yes, but mostly about spices and bitterness. The second sip is better one than the first, but it is very single dimensional experience today. The first time I tasted this, I’d had a few drinks before so it tasted a lot better back then. Perhaps this would suit nicely at a bar, to enjoy with some conversation. On a third sip some oiliness emerges, with more sweet ingredients. Citrus and spice is what remains here for me, not peat and smoke.
Then would you buy this one? It depends what you are after. A bottle to hotel room on a trip? Definitely yes, beats blended malts easily. This would also work in a tasting nicely, to bring out spice and citrus contrast. But don’t buy this if you are after a strong smoky and peaty dram, because then you will be disappointed. Not my favorite, but I’ve had a lot worse too.

Side trek for today: Money Shoulder

I feel like a happy Monkey who travels on other’s shoulders. Another side trek into the world of Speyside. And not just one Speysider, but three. Monkey Should is a mix of three different malts: Balvenie, Glenfiddich and Kininvie. I have never tasted Kininvie, but the other two malts are familiar. Nothing smoky about this dram but it surely has a Monkey’s kick’s worth of price-quality in it. The bottle is relatively inexpensive but yet tasty. And it is tasty enough to beat most of blends and Irish whiskies in the price category.

 

How does the taste feels like? The palate has spiciness, malta, peat and vanilla oak. It has some sting of the Speysider drams (like Glenfiddich) but it is not bad. Relatively soft and yes, this would be a easy bottle to share and drink with friends. The finish is smooth. It does not last long, but it is smooth.

In their web pages ( https://www.monkeyshoulder.com ) they say this would go well with rocks or in drinks. With this pricing it is definitely worth a shot to try those some day. They have suggestions also, packed with humor https://www.monkeyshoulder.com/recipes/  Perhaps I’ll try Monkey Coffee, that is not in the list.

After a few sips the vanilla and spice are the most dominant tastes. And this is a sweet vanilla, with sugar on top. With the season’s spices and sweetness, this is not a bad dram during winter time. Not a bad dram, not at all.