Category: spirit

Glenburgie 25, 1992 (Cadenhead’s)

I visited London for the first time over Christmas of 2017. Most of the “sites” I wanted to see were the whisky shops for which London is known, and at the top of my list was the Cadenhead’s shop. Cadenhead’s releases new products roughly quarterly and seems to have an ever-changing selection in their stores as a result, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I would stumble upon while there. Yes, I could have ordered online, but where’s the fun in that? Anywho, I picked up several bottles while there (whisky and otherwise), including several bottles from the “cask ends” series, which offers some of their releases in a convenient 20cl format. This Glenburgie was a recommendation from the shopkeeper who was helping me, and at the time I believe they had already sold out of the 70cl bottles.

Smell: Lots of lemon, then a hint of strawberry, overripe honey dew, kiwi, a little table salt, and there’s some funkiness underlying it all. It’s like a very odd fruit salad but it works well.

Taste: Lemon hits the palate first followed by melon, but it’s overripe cantaloupe rather than the honey dew that was indicated by the nose. Immediately following the fruit are malted milk balls and sweet tea. Very easy to drink at full strength. The texture is good, not viscous but not thin either.

Finish: The fruit fades and the milk chocolate/malted milk ball note hangs around for quite a while.

Overall: The combination of fruit, milk chocolate, and malt works really well. I don’t recall exactly how much I paid for this but it was fairly reasonable for a 25 year old single malt. I wish I had another.

Spirit Type: Scotch: Single Malt
Proof: 109.2
Vintage: 1992
Age: 25
Cask Type: American Oak (Reused)
Rating: A-

Copper & Kings Pear Brandy, Single Cask for BevMo

Copper & Kings started off sourcing high-quality pot-distilled brandies from all over the country and creating their own unique spirits from them by further aging, finishing, and blending them to meet their desired flavor profiles. While they are distilling their own brandies now, it seems they have not completely stopped hunting for brandy treasures elsewhere (or at least they hadn’t as of late 2018 when this hit shelves). According to the proprietor of C&K, this is “sourced pure Oregon Pear Brandy. Average age is over 10 years with the oldest first distilled in 1996. It was aged in a variety of barrels. We blended it together and have it being polished in toasted, uncharted new American oak barrels. The barrels are 60 gallons (wine barrel size). We wanted the barrels to integrate the profile, and pear brandy is very, very delicate – so everything we do with pear will be uncharred.” The distillery is not disclosed but it is thought to have been a recently shuttered distillery that obviously needed to offload their stock (possibly Brandy Peak Distillery in Brookings, OR, but can’t be sure). Once the source brandy was all blended and allowed to meld in the 60-gallon barrels, each barrel was sold off as a single cask. Since my beloved K&L decided not to purchase a cask of this, I had to slum it and head to BevMo.

Smell: Pear skins followed closely by some funky Marc or grappa notes and then some soggy wood. If I didn’t know anything about the provenance I would guess this was distilled from fermented pear skins.

Taste: Concentrated, intense pear skin completely envelops the palate. There’s also a hint of clove, but it is really all about the pear here. If I listed anything else I’d be reaching. Nice, full mouthfeel. Drinkable and enjoyable at full strength.

Finish: More of a whole pear thing going on here with both the skin and the juicy flesh, but it’s still fairly tannic and mouth-drying. At the end is a slightly oxidative note that I usually get from wine- or sherry-finished spirits and which I don’t usually like but works ok here.

Overall: It’s hard to overstate how much this spirit captures the essence of fresh, ripe pears. It’s also hard to rate something this unique. The lack of depth would be an issue in most spirits but here, if there was more depth, it would probably taste less like pears. Would I rather it have more going on but not capture the pear flavor as well? No, I wouldn’t. I wish I could have tried the individual parts/casks before they were all blended together, it would have been interesting to taste and smell how it all came together.

Spirit Type: Other Brandy
Proof: 109
Vintage:
Age:
Cask Type: French Oak (Reused)
Rating: B+

Domaine du Promenoir Calvados Hors d’Age 1998

I purchased this bottle directly from the producer at a farmers market in Normandy a few years back. At the time they had a few vintages to sample: this 1998, one from the early 90s, and one from the late 80s. We sampled all of them and this was the fruitiest, so I bought it. Let’s see if I made a good decision. 

Smell: sweet ripe apple then some astringent wood and acetone. After several minutes in my glass, there’s baked peach and a musty note as well.

Taste: starts with sweet (but not suspiciously so) apple, transitioning quickly to tart apple. Some some oaky bitterness creeps in too. Texture is just a tad thin.

Finish: Apple skin and seeds. Fairly tannic. Ends very dry, almost like apple pulp that has had all the juice pressed out of it.

Overall: No bells or whistles, just well-made, unadulterated apple spirit aged in decent French oak casks that still had a bit of life left in them. This almost certainly had some water added to reduce the bottling proof, but I’m glad they didn’t take it all the way down to 80.

Spirit Type: Calvados
Proof: 84.2
Vintage: 1998
Age: 18
Cask Type: French Oak (Reused)
Rating: B

Domaine le Chaou à Perquie 1987 (Fitte et Laterrade for K&L)

The story goes that le Chaou a Perquie (otherwise just known as le Chaou) is Domaine Charron distillate that was bartered off to someone else who aged it in new French oak casks and let it hang out in their cellar for 30+ years before it was discovered and purchased by the small independent bottler Fitte et Laterrade. There were only two vintages produced, 1987 and 1988, and K&L bought all of it for release during the 2019 yak season. I purchased a bottle of each, a small amount of which I sampled out, but most of which I poured down my own gullet.

Smell: heavy on the lacquer and varnish notes with hints of Honey baked ham and cinnamon. With a little water, some plum jam peeks out.

Taste: lots of oak up front with some Dimetapp grape sweetness along with a pretty strong chemical note. The addition of water brings out some tart pomegranate. Texture is good, slightly syrupy.

Finish: very tannic, slightly vegetal, menthol, spiced apple, cinnamon

Overall: I liked this more and more as I worked my way through the bottle. Also, air and water did wonders in bringing out some of the fruitier flavors. I wish I would have picked up a second but alas, I spent my allowance elsewhere (still on Armagnac, mind you). There is a little sour oak in the finish but it is more restrained than in the 1988 (I will review the ’88 at some point).

Spirit Type: Armagnac
Proof: 99
Vintage: 1987
Age: 31
Cask Type: French Oak (New)
Rating: B+