Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Malt Mission 2010 #395

Bushmills 16 Three 3 wood
Bushmills 16yo
Irish Single Malt Whiskey
40% abv
£50
$80 (USD)

Still in the snow-covered highlands. We had a short thaw, but otherwise my month in Dufftown has been a winter wonderland. Hope I get out of Aberdeen on Wednesday. Hope you get where you need to be for Christmas, too. Have a happy one, drambassadors.

The last of a string of Irish tasted here on the mission, this one comes from Ireland's oldest distillery. In this case, not only is it triple distilled but matured in three different casks: ex-bourbon, ex-sherry, and ex-port. The crazy bit is that it is matured in each of these casks in succession.

TASTING NOTES:

Sweet and candied, raw corn on the cob, extrememly fruity, blackberry squash, blueberry buns, orange syrup.

If the nose was sweet the palate is beyond. Gummy bears, grape candy, blueberry jam. Juicy, soft, really easy to drink.

SUMMARY:

I might give this a go as my new conversion whisky, one for the folks who say "I hate whisk(e)y" or for the American whiskey drinker who has sworn off anything else. This is likely as close to flavoured whisky as is legal. In fact, blind, I would have been puzzled, for sure, probably thought it was Canadian (they can add 9.09% "other").

Worlds better than I remember the 10yo (Malt Mission #82) but I am not sure I would ever reach for this were it on my shelf. Sure, I like my sweet whiskies, but this is like kids grape juice boxes or something. If the craving struck, I would probably just enjoy a glass of grape juice and have a Talisker DE before bed.

2 comments:

AnarchAngel said...

You've completely missed the fact that this is the worlds best Irish Coffee whiskey ;-)

I've been drinking the stuff for years, use it as my dessert whiskey frequently, make sauces from it, use it for my "conversion" whiskey etc...

I have plenty of better whiskeys, but they are mostly much more of an acquired taste, and usually more expensive.

It is always sweet, but I've found a considerable variability batch to batch; some much sweeter than others.

Jason Debly said...

You hit the nail on the head! Too sweet! It's ok if a whisky starts sweet, but generally, it needs to evolve, becoming drier on the palate as it reaches the finish. Not the case here or with any of the Bushmill bottlings I have tried.