April 2021

Booker’s 2021-01 “Donohoe’s Batch”

/ / Bourbon, Review /

Booker’s “Donohoe’s Batch” Batch 2021-01
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

6 Years, 11 Months, 4 Days
62.65% ABV
$90
Website
Bookers 2021-01 Donohoes Batch
We would like to thank Beam Suntory and Multiply for sending us a sample to review.

What the Distillery Says:

“The first release of the Booker’s® Bourbon 2021 Collection is Booker’s Batch 2021-01 ‘Donohoe’s Batch.’ This batch is named in honor of retired Jim Beam employee Mike Donohoe who was also a close friend to my dad, Booker Noe. Without Mike, Booker’s Bourbon wouldn’t exist today.

In 1982, Mike joined the Jim Beam Company as a sales manager in Chicago – a ‘suit’ as Dad would say – after retiring from a seven-year career in the NFL. Mike first met Dad on a company trip to Kentucky. After taking a liking to Mike, Dad invited him to his office for a glass of bourbon. It was unlike any Jim Beam Bourbon he had tasted before. Booker let Mike in on his secret – he’d been playing with something different, and he’d share a bit of it with friends from time to time.

A few years later, Mike approached Booker with the idea to give bottles of his special stash as holiday gifts to their most important distributors and industry partners. With little time and almost no budget, Booker sourced wine bottles from a warehouse in Bardstown and wrote the labels himself to get the job done. Based on the hundreds of letters they received raving about that uncut, unfiltered whiskey, it’s safe to say the rest is Booker’s Bourbon history.

Dad always had the final say when it came to his Booker’s, but he trusted Mike to help him build it into the brand that it is today. ‘Mike gets it,’ he used to say. Now, I’m proud to honor Mike with a batch of his own.”

— Fred Noe, Beam Family 7th Generation Master Distiller

TASTING NOTES
COLOR: Our darkest and deepest amber and henna color.
TASTE: Deep and complex flavors of vanilla, nuts and oak.
AROMA: Robust vanilla and caramel notes; slightly smoky.
FINISH: Long and full; perfect for easygoing sipping.

What Gary Says

Nose:  Rich caramel and vanilla, oak with baking spices, cocoa and a hint of roasted peanuts.
Palate:  Rich mouthfeel with caramel, dark chocolate, pepper spice with cinnamon, orange zest, peanut butter and a bit of clove.
Finish:  Moderately long, drying with cocoa, oak and spice notes.
Comments:  Another really solid Booker’s.  Thinking of some recent batches, this is right there with most – maybe a bit more on the spicy side than the sweet (I don’t recall getting clove often, but this has a bit of a sharper/spicy edge). Takes water well, and continues the streak of “hadn’t met a Booker’s I didn’t like!” .

Rating: Stands Out

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Highland Park Full Volume

/ / Island, Review, Scottish Whisky / ,

Highland Park Full Volume
Single Malt Scotch Whisky

47.2% ABV
$100
Website
Highland Park Full Volume

What the Distillery Says

Some things in life are best enjoyed in their most intense forms. This includes your closest friendships, your favourite songs, and exceptionally intense single malt whiskies. Full Volume is a robust, beautifully balanced whisky, exclusively matured in Kosher certified ex-bourbon casks, rather than our traditional sherry casks. This allowed us to turn up the volume on those succulent creamy bourbon notes. Distilled in 1999, the resulting 17-year jam session of maturation yielded an ABV of 47.2% and was bottled and released in 2017. The intense flavour profile delivers creamy vanilla and light citrus fruits, all balanced out by Highland Park’s characteristic smokiness.

NATURAL CASK-DRIVEN COLOUR (NO ADDITIVES)
Light straw, clear and bright

FLAVOURS: Vanilla | Coconut | Mango | Pineapple | Cedar Wood | Lemon peel | Vanilla pods | Light smoke

Full Volume was created by:

  • Using 100% FIRST-FILL BOURBON CASKS rather than sherry seasoned ones
  • Combining 200 LTR BARRELS and 250 LTR HOGSHEADS
  • Filling 481 CAKS on the 30th March; 29th April; 10th, 17th and 31st August; 7th September – All during 1999
  • Filling at strengths of between 63.6% AND 63.7%
  • Filtered at +4 degrees C

Richard Burton from Kirkwall, was our warehouseman when these casks were laid down – he is still working with us!

TASTING NOTES

Full Volume is a 1999 Vintage, intensely balanced, single malt Scotch whisky. Naturally PALE AND BRIGHT in colour, it delivers a LIGHT PEATY AROMA, punctuated with WARM FRUITY NOTES of exotic mango and pineapple and an echo of cedar wood. Warm and generous in the mouth, a SWEET CITRUS treble of lemon peel perfectly offsets deeper bass notes of CREAMY VANILLA while subtle mid-tones of LIGHT SMOKE maintain an enticing harmony.

What Gary Says

Nose:  Honey malt, peat, heather, grassy, bit of vanilla, hint of sea salt and iodine.
Palate:  Malty vanilla, bit of soft citrus with pears, bit of peat, pepper and a hint of mandarin oranges.
Finish:  Moderately long, drying with honeyed peat and pepper spice.
Comments:  I like Highland Park, and did my best to not try to think of this like Highland Park as it would be a departure without the sherried maturation. I didn’t find anything off putting, but for the money, I would be disappointed. Left me unimpressed, although it is an interesting view into the distillate and maturation without the sherry influence. Dangerously drinkable, but a tad forgettable for me.

Rating: Average/Stands Out

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Aberlour 16 Year Old Double Cask Matured

/ / Review, Scottish Whisky, Speyside / ,

Aberlour 16 Year Old Double Cask Matured
Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky

40% ABV
$75-$100
Website
Aberlour 16 Year

What the Distillery Says

Fruity & Deep
With the depth and complexity that comes from being matured for 16 years in a combination of American Oak casks and the finest Sherry butts, this expression’s warm and fruity notes are enriched by an engagingly spicy sweetness.

Colour: Rich golden amber
Nose: Rich scented floral and sweet raisin aromas with spicy nutiness
Palate: Smooth and full with sweet, floral and spicy flavours and notes of plum and gentle oak
Finish: Long, warm, spicy fruitiness

What Gary Says

Nose:  Sherry bomb, fruitcake full of raisins, apricots and plums, cloves, oak, smoke, cigar paper and spent matches.
Palate:  Creamy mouthfeel, sweet with dark fruit, plums, raisins, oak, pepper, cinnamon, and clove.
Finish:  Moderately long, drying with pepper, sherry and oak.
Comments:  This is a sherry bomb with an oaky edge, and drinks a tad hot to me. Water tamps some of those edges, but leaves a sulfury note – and the finish degrades. That sulfury/spent matches note is something I’ve gotten in nearly every Aberlour I’ve tasted, and it just isn’t in my wheelhouse (sure, give me some worn Band-aids with an Islay single malt and I’m happy, but leave the spent matches please). Outside of that, it has a nice mouthfeel, so if you’re a fan of Aberlour, this probably won’t disappoint (and if like me you’re just not – this probably won’t be the dram that changes your mind).

Rating: Average/Stands Out

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Compass Box Tobias & The Angel

/ / Review, Scottish Whisky /

Compass Box Tobias & The Angel
Blended Malt Whisky

47.6% ABV
$500
Website
Compass Box Tobias and the Angel

What the Blender Says

Made from just two parcels of whisky, which we are unlikely to source again at these ages, Tobias & the Angel is a culmination of two decades of whiskymaking.

We have a long-held reverence for the whiskies of the Clynelish and Caol Ila Distilleries. Ever since Eleuthera, which we created in 2002, we have understood that these two distillery whiskies complement each other exquisitely.

For the label artwork, so great is our esteem for the whiskies in this blend that we looked to Renaissance painting for inspiration.

We’ve chosen TOBIAS & THE ANGEL , a beautiful painting produced at Andrea del Verrocchio’s studio in Florence during the 15th century. As was common at the time, however, TOBIAS & THE ANGEL showcases the talents of several artists. For example, the little dog with its graceful and minutely-observed curls of hair, and the gleaming fish carried by Tobias, were both painted by a young Leonardo da Vinci.

We love the symbolism of the naïve boy and the divine angel. To us this represents the relationship between aromatic smoke, a hallmark of Caol Ila Distillery, and the ethereal fruitiness and complexity of Clynelish.

TOBIAS & THE ANGEL is our latest study of these two unique flavour profiles, and the effects of their combination. Due to the age of the single malts involved, it is also our rarest and most precious. We hope that those able to acquire a bottle might share its contents with other whisky lovers; the Angel to their Tobias.

FLAVOUR DESCRIPTORS: Distant bonfires underlay ethereal herbal and fruit characters, the result of extended maturation.

DISTILLERY SOURCING: A heavenly partnership of Clynelish Distillery and Caol Ila Distillery.

BOTTLING DETAILS: Bottled at 47.6% | Not chill-filtered | Natural colour

RECOMMENDATIONS: We believe this whisky will be best appreciated sipped at bottling strength. However, you may enjoy it any way you like.

What Gary Says

Nose:  Rich, smoky earthiness, herbal with fennel and lemongrass while sweet with vanilla, apricots, mangoes, and faint chocolate.
Palate:  Creamy mouthfeel, fruit salad with peaches, stewed pears and cherries all drizzled lightly in caramel, earthy notes with pepper spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, a bit of a vegetal note, peat smoke and a bit of toffee.
Finish:  Long with peat smoke and toasted marshmallow lingering.
Comments: This is a deliciously complex dram – one I want to savor and pick apart every sniff or sip as it seems to keep showing me something new.  A bit of water amps up the fruit notes on the nose, and does the same on the palate while tamping the earthiness, and giving it a bit of waxiness.  I had the absolute pleasure of sampling this over the course of a couple of weeks, and doing so in a side-by-side setting with the preceding blends Eleuthera and The Lost Blend which I was fortunate enough to have bottles of.  That was a lot of fun to experience the progression moving from Eleuthera, which is a fine dram in its own right, to The Lost Blend – where it is quite similar but more rich and complex, to this which was more than a bit more complex.  This is comprised of parcels from Clynelish (24 yrs old) and Caol Ila (34 yrs old) in 51% to 49% ratios respectively.  If those ages are accurate, it is interesting that the older malt flipped here – as Eleuthera’s components were 15 yr Clynelish with 12 yr old Caol Ila.  For a whisk(e)y geek, I would absolutely encourage you to try to find an opportunity to try this – but the price is such that I couldn’t say anyone ‘Must Buy’.  Personally I’ve never spent this much money on a bottle, but I’m incredibly thankful and fortunate that Richard acquired one and generously shared it.  He shared his take on bottles in these higher priced tiers – not thinking about them simply as whiskey, but as an experience.  From that perspective, if you’ve ever enjoyed a $100 (or more) meal – consider that lasts only for a few hours over one evening, whereas you could enjoy perhaps a dozen such evenings with a 2 oz pour of this gem.  Or fewer while sharing the experience with friends.  This is definitely one I’d savor for an entire evening.

Rating: Must Try

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