Irish whiskey

[sageman]

Any favorites out there, with or without a cigar? I’ve been liking Sexton. Sherry cask aged, sweeter profile. Good pairing with a cigar for me. 

[Webbo]

Jameson Black Barrel. Sweet, smooth, creamy with a vanilla and toffee aftertaste. Works superbly. 

[JustDave]

I've got a pretty decently sized collection of Irish Whiskey.  Irish is my first love though you wouldn't know as I have 5x as many scotches just as a matter of how many different distillers there are.

 

I've got a few bottles of Jameson kicking around as well, both the standard stuff(decent in a mixed drink) and the cold brew which is pretty solid for what it is.

Personal favorite is Yellow Spot.  I like all the spots, but Yellow remains my favorite and always impresses when poured.

Picked up the Waterford last weekend, haven't gotten into it yet, but I want to see what Reynier has done since he left Bruicladdich.

That Method and Madness on the left is interesting, chestnut barrel finished, and if I ever have a discussion with someone about the different wood for barrel impact they get a taste off of that thing.  The wood notes are VASTLY different than you'd get off of oak and I get a feeling of intense wooden antiques overwhelming your palette. Not really pleasant but proves a point.

[sageman]

46 minutes ago, JustDave said:

Personal favorite is Yellow Spot.  I like all the spots, but Yellow remains my favorite and always impresses when poured.

I’m a big fan of the “spots” as well, only recently saw the blue locally, and haven’t yet tried it

21 hours ago, Webbo said:

Jameson Black Barrel. Sweet, smooth, creamy with a vanilla and toffee aftertaste. Works superbly.

Sounds like it would go great with some coffee too

[JustDave]

1 hour ago, sageman said:

I’m a big fan of the “spots” as well, only recently saw the blue locally, and haven’t yet tried it

23 hours ago, Webbo said:

It's good but quite hot at 110+ proof which for Irish is very rare.  I can't think of another cask/barrel strength offhand actually.  Most people who like high proof bourbon really enjoy blue spot.  My special occasion spot is red.  It's good for something special and I enjoy the flavor, but it isn't a good to for me.  The yellow spot gives me everything I want from an Irish impressively well done.  I find myself having to replace the bottle more often than I'd like and it's getting challenging at times.  The greens are good, the different finished ones, I could take or leave, and is a good example of 'irish whiskey'.

[SirVantes]

1 hour ago, JustDave said:

It's good but quite hot at 110+ proof which for Irish is very rare.  I can't think of another cask/barrel strength offhand actually.  

Redbreast 12 yo Cask Strength comes to mind - it's my preferred Redbreast, which is my preferred single pot still Irish.  To my mind, there are three major styles of Irish whiskey - single pot stills, blends, and malts.  The spicy single pot still style suits my palate best.  Of the blends, I used to enjoy Midleton Very Rare, which is unfortunately now Very Expensive.  Bushmills (which is from Northern Ireland) is my default for malts, especially independent bottlings with some age.

3 hours ago, JustDave said:

Picked up the Waterford last weekend, haven't gotten into it yet, but I want to see what Reynier has done since he left Bruicladdich.

 

I'm also curious about Waterford, especially the single farm expressions.  I want to be persuaded that terroir applies to whisk(e)y too.

[JustDave]

3 minutes ago, SirVantes said:

Redbreast 12 yo Cask Strength

Yeah, this came to me pretty much as soon as I was done hitting submit.

 

3 minutes ago, SirVantes said:

I'm also curious about Waterford, especially the single farm expressions.  I want to be persuaded that terroir applies to whisk(e)y too.

I've got a lot of Bruichladdich products including a bunch of Islay and Bere Barley from them several years of each actually and their is a pretty significant difference.  Interesting to try, but not something I'd prefer over the mainline PC, Classic Laddie, or Octomore.

I actually only picked the waterford up because I'd gone to that particular shop to get a store pick they had and they didn't have it when I got there but I noticed that sitting on a shelf and I never see them out in the wild.

[SirVantes]

2 minutes ago, JustDave said:

I've got a lot of Bruichladdich products including a bunch of Islay and Bere Barley from them several years of each actually and their is a pretty significant difference.  Interesting to try, but not something I'd prefer over the mainline PC, Classic Laddie, or Octomore.

 

Yeah, the Bere Barley is quite noticeably different, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising since it's a heritage strain.  Not sure I picked up all that much difference between the Islay Barleys (or the micro provenance stuff they did for a while).  I do like straight-bourbon Bruichladdich best.  Even for the Valinch bottlings, I tend to favour the bourbon ones, which kind of defeats the purpose of all the ACE they were pushing.

You mentioned wood influence - I've avoided Method and Madness since I tried a couple of the Midleton Dair Ghaelachs and found the virgin Irish oak way overpowering.  Chestnut sounds crazy to me, especially since winemakers have deserted it for imparting unpleasant bitter notes, even when they "traditionally" (read "it's cheaper") used it.  Wouldn't mind trying that mizunara release though.

[JustDave]

36 minutes ago, SirVantes said:

You mentioned wood influence - I've avoided Method and Madness since I tried a couple of the Midleton Dair Ghaelachs and found the virgin Irish oak way overpowering.  Chestnut sounds crazy to me, especially since winemakers have deserted it for imparting unpleasant bitter notes, even when they "traditionally" (read "it's cheaper") used it.  Wouldn't mind trying that mizunara release though.

The chestnut is... not really what I'd call an enjoyable experience.  Like, at all.  But at the same time, something worth trying.  I'm sure someone out there thinks it's the best thing ever, but it tastes like what I imagine sucking on that piece of wood would taste like and is the clearest example of 'barrel influence' I have I think in all of the bottles I have.  So I keep it around as a paragon of that impact.

The Mizunara is interesting, and nice spot btw with it back in the shadows, I travel to Dublin somewhat frequently(covid aside) and I was picking up a bottle and asked for a recommendation on 'a bottle I'd have trouble getting in the US'.  Not my favorite by any stretch, it isn't bad, but just a few notes I didn't enjoy when I first sampled it.   I should revisit it though at some point.  I also don't have a lot of exposure to Glendalough in general to tell what the Mizunara cask is doing with the base spirit.  I picked it up at a time when I was picking up 'strange one offs with a cool story' and at the time it was pretty rare for something to be put into a cask like that whereas now it's as common as anything.

Send me a PM if you'd like, assuming you are in the states, happy to send you samples of each.

[Webbo]

3 hours ago, SirVantes said:

Redbreast 12 yo Cask Strength comes to mind

Yes a superb drop indeed. The standard 12 I also love and at 50% cheaper its well worth it.

[Bill Hayes]

Great thread. Very interesting. Don't see a lot of Irish here in Oz, I guess unless looking for it. Might have to investigate further. Cheers, enjoy lads.