The Yamazaki Single Malt Japanese Whisky Distiller’s Reserve
43% ABV $70 Website We would like to thank Paul (check out his reviews here, or on Dapper Drams) for sending us a sample to review.
What the Distillery Says*
* Note that there is no mention of this product on their web-site, the below content is from various sources including packaging images.
Yamazaki Whisky is Suntory’s flagship single malt whisky, from Japan’s first and oldest malt distillery, multi-layered with fruit and Mizunara aromas. Released in Spring 2014, this is one of two Distiller’s Reserve single malt whiskies from Suntory in Japan. This single malt from the Yamazaki distillery is jam-packed with superb red berry notes, gained from the whisky being matured in Bordeaux wine casks and Sherry casks. It also features malt matured in Mizunara casks, adding subtle fragrant oak notes.
TASTING NOTES Color: Gold Nose: Strawberry, cherry, Mizunara (Japanese oak) Palate: Raspberry, white peach, touch of coconut Finish: Sweet vanilla, clear finish with, hint of cinnamon
What Gary Says
Nose: Fruity with citrus, peaches, green apples, banana, grapes, a bit of red wine casks and Mizunara oak, hints of strawberries, cherries, and almonds. Palate: Sweet and full of fruit notes, peaches, pears, fresh berries, caramel sauce, honey, and almond cookies. Finish: Moderately long with lingering mixed fruit and notes of wine. Comments: This is like a liquid fruit salad in whisky form. Quite light and fruity, it has a lot going on – albeit it mostly in the fruity/nutty spectrum. Not a critique, but an observation. If you like fruity whisky, this is a lovely dram that you could spend some time with picking out all of the varieties. You also get the nuance from the various casks which is interesting. While I rather enjoy it, I can see where others might find it lopsided and lacking balance (maybe a bit more spice and savory notes).
Canadian Club Chronicles 42 Year Old Issue No. 2: The Dock Man
45% ABV $300 Website We would like to thank Canadian Club and Multiply for sending us a sample to review.
What the Distillery Says
Canadian Club®, an iconic whisky that has propelled the Canadian whisky category to fame for more than 150 years, is proud to announce the second release within the CC Chronicles™/MC premium release series: Canadian Club® 42 Year Old. The limited-edition expression, also known as Issue No. 2: The Dock Man, celebrates the dock worker of years past who consistently delivered quality whisky to bar owners and drinkers when counterfeit whisky ran rampant during the Prohibition era.
Batched and barreled more than four decades ago, Canadian Club 42 Year Old is masterfully blended to showcase robust rye spice, delicate notes of brown sugar and baking spices to create an exceptionally rich, smooth taste. As a result, this exquisite marque leaves fans with the complex, yet rich flavor profile Canadian Club is best known for.
“At Canadian Club, we pride ourselves on our commitment to consistently crafting superior Canadian whisky,” Global Whisky Ambassador Tish Harcus said. “For more than 150 years, we’ve consistently delivered quality expressions to whisky drinkers, and the release of Canadian Club 42 Year Old continues this tradition. Following the success of our first CC Chronicles release last year, we’re excited to unveil another premium, distinctive whisky that endures the test of time.”
Launched in 2018, CC Chronicles is a series of premium, limited-edition expressions created to celebrate the brand’s rich history and commitment to producing authentic whisky. Each issue within the Chronicles will represent an iconic moment in Canadian Club’s rich history. The series launched with the release of Canadian Club® 41 Year Old, celebrating the Water of Windsor, which was named Canadian Whisky of the Year in the 2019 Jim Murray Whisky Bible. Canadian Club 42 Year Old marks the second release within the series.
Canadian Club 42 Year Old delivers a perfect balance of smooth and intense flavor characteristics to deliver optimal taste:
Aroma: Robust rye spice, caramel, and oak with a hint of char Palette: Pleasantly warm and slightly sweet with delicate notes of brown sugar and baking spices balanced with oak and rye spiciness Finish: Lingering taste of toffee and a subtle tartness of the palate
Canadian Club 42 Year Old will be available across the U.S. in very limited quantities with a suggested retail price of $299.95 for a 750ml bottle.
What Gary Says
Nose: Caramel cream candies, soft baking spices, nutmeg with a gentle citrus note (maybe lemon cream pie>), a wisp of oak over a slightly floral note. Palate: Sweet with caramel, brown sugar, a touch of maple candies with a hint of lemon, gentle cinnamon and pepper spice. Finish: Moderately long with notes of caramel and pepper spice. Comments: This is a soft and gentle dram, squarely in the Canadian Club family style. While soft, it packs a lot of flavor for 45% ABV, and is very well balanced with complexity but not as much oak as you might expect with 42 years. I can’t imagine fans of Canadian Club looking for a super-premium dram being disappointed in this. Is it worth $300? That’s for you to decide. There aren’t many (any?) 40+ year old Canadian whiskies on the market to compare against, and there are folks who would pay $300 for a 6 yr barrel proof rye in the US. I’m not one of them, but my point is value is in the eye of the buyer. I do think this stands out as markedly more complex than any other Canadian Club offering I’ve tried.
The Coffey Still is the world’s first patented continuous still invented by Mr. Aeneas Coffey in 1830. Masataka Taketsuru valued the feature of this type of still, which retains the flavors of ingredients and also creates a distinctive texture.
Coffey Grain and Coffey Malt are Nikka’s signature grain whiskies which show the beauty of our Coffey Stills.
Coffey Malt is made from 100% malted barley. However it is not categorized as “malt whisky” but as “grain whisky” since it is not distilled in a pot still. This unique production method results in extraordinary flavors and texture.
What Gary Says
Nose: Sweet malt with butterscotch, vanilla flan, over-ripe pears, subtle oak and spice Palate: Lovely fruit notes of peaches, pears, plums, cherries, a bit of coconut, with a viscous mouthfeel. Finish: Moderately long with notes of fruit salad. Comments: This is a very nice malt. On the sweet side to be sure, but not sickeningly sweet. I get a nice range of fruit flavors, but clearly a malt whisk(e)y. Really shows that a column or Coffey still can make some lovely whisk(e)y, which fans of bourbon have known for years.
The first single malt whisky ever distilled in the Cotswolds.
Carefully sourced ingredients Malt: Odyssey. We are committed to using only barley grown in the Cotswolds, and the variety and farm on which it was grown are listed on the label of each bottle. We are one of a very small number of British whisky-makers to use 100% floor-malted barley. This comes to us from Britain’s oldest working maltings, in nearby Warminster. It is unpeated. Yeast: Two complementary varieties – Anchor and Fermentis – to ensure good yields and excellent fruity flavours. Water: Village water supply – filtered, softened and demineralised before use. Wood: Premium first-fill Kentucky ex-Bourbon 200-litre barrels and reconditioned American Oak 225-litre red wine casks that have been shaved, toasted and recharred.
Lovingly crafted We use traditional production processes and equipment to produce our Cotswolds Single Malt. Locally-grown malted barley is milled and then mashed in our 0.5-tonne mash tun, mixing the milled grain with hot water to produce worts. Yeasts are then added. We run the fermentation for more than 90 hours in order to generate plenty of fruity flavour compounds alongside the alcohol produced. Then the distillations begin. First, in the wash still (Mary), and the second in Janis, our spirit still. In the spirit run, we only select a small section – the heart cut – which is taken unusually early in the distillation to capture the fruity notes and avoid the heavier, rougher elements that appear at the end of the run. The end result is a light, colourless, fruity new-make spirit. This is diluted to 63.5% ABV and put into casks to mature. This release has been aged for just over three years, and is bottled non-chill filtered, with no added colouring, at 46% ABV.
Tasting notes Nose: Notes of honey and butterscotch layered with light fruits (peaches & apricots), a hint of marzipan. Palate: Strong notes of tannin-rich malt, oils and dark sugar with lots of spice, caramelised Seville orange marmalade. Finish: Long and resinous, with dark red fruits and a hint of treacle.
What Gary Says
Nose: Honey, subtle fruit notes of peaches and pears with a dusting of nutmeg, a bit of a winey note with malted barley. Palate: Honeyed malt, a touch of molasses, stewed peaches with vanilla, slight pepper bite with overly ripe bananas. Finish: Short to moderate in length, drying with spice and oak. Comments: I loved visiting the Cotswolds a few years back, and hadn’t ever had an English whisky. While this is young, it is a nice enough pour; lightly fruity, not objectionable. I’d say it punches above its weight for its age, although maybe not for the price. If they were in the U.S., I’d refer to them as a ‘craft distillery’, although unlike most in that category they’re using full sized barrels which makes a huge difference. I’d love to try this with some age on it.
46.5% ABV $50 Website We would like to thank Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey and The Brand Guild for sending us a sample to review.
What the Producer Says
Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, the super premium whiskey from Tennessee and the first spirit brand in history to commemorate an African-American, is excited to announce the launch of Uncle Nearest 1884 Premium Small Batch Whiskey. The brand revived the little-known story of Nathan “Nearest” Green, the first known African-American master distiller, back in 2017, and launched a namesake whiskey in his honor that has since won 40 awards and expanded into all 50 states and 10 countries (with shipping available to 148 countries). The brand can now be found in nearly 6,000 stores, bars and restaurants. A 7-year-old minimum whiskey, Uncle Nearest 1884 commemorates the final year Nearest is believed to have put his own whiskey into barrels before retiring from distilling.
Uncle Nearest 1884 is unique in taste and curation while celebrating Nearest’s legacy. The barrels used to create each batch are selected by Fawn Weaver, CEO and co-founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, to ensure each bottle contains a blend of the highest-quality liquid, maintaining Uncle Nearest’s signature smoothness. The release of this particular offering honors Nearest’s memory through his family’s personal involvement in the blending process, with each batch curated by a different descendant of the legendary master distiller and the back label of each bottle signed by the descendant who created that batch. The first bottles hitting shelves are curated by Victoria Eady-Butler, great-great-granddaughter of Nearest, shareholder of Uncle Nearest and its Director of Administration.
“If my great-great-grandfather were alive today, I know how proud he would be to see us keeping his legacy alive through the continued growth of this brand,” said Victoria Eady-Butler. “When Fawn first agreed to shine a light on our ancestor by putting his name on a bottle, we never could have imagined where Uncle Nearest would be two years later, with people around the world knowing the name Nearest Green. I speak for our entire family when I say we’re thrilled to be a part of his legacy.”
The small batch offering is a fresh departure from the whiskey brand’s other products, while still utilizing the elements that made Nearest’s whiskey so renowned. Uncle Nearest 1884 is lighter bodied, allowing it to be sipped by those who prefer a lower proof spirit. The bright off-white and gold label stands out on the shelf against its darker labeled counterparts and at $49.99 SRP, 1884 is the most accessible of Uncle Nearest’s super premium product line to-date without straying from the spirit’s premier quality and taste. 1884 is bottled at 93-proof, another nod to Nearest, as it is believed his whiskey was bottled at or near that proof.
“We set out to cement Nearest’s legacy and to ensure his contributions to the Tennessee Whiskey industry would never again be forgotten,” said Fawn Weaver. “With every bottle containing the signature of the descendant who created it, Nearest’s family is picking up where he left off. More than one million glasses of Uncle Nearest have been raised around the world in salute of this great innovator. This ensures millions more will be raised over the next year.”
The first batch of Uncle Nearest 1884 debuted exclusively on July 19, 2019 at Tales of the Cocktail, the world’s premier cocktail festival, in New Orleans, Louisiana during a conversation on “Kentucky Bourbon vs. Tennessee Whiskey: Battle of the Premiums,” led by Weaver. The new whiskey was met with high regard by all who tasted it, with respected writer G. Clay Whittaker encapsulating the sentiment best: “At 7 years of age, it’s already a modern value bottle at that price, not to mention that the whiskey inside is one of the most refined crowd-pleasers we’ve tasted this year.” The release date also marked the two-year anniversary since the launch of the Uncle Nearest brand and the release of its first expression, Uncle Nearest 1856, rounding out the company’s portfolio of super premium whiskeys.
What Gary Says
Nose: Sweet and smooth with vanilla custard, dried oak, caramel, toffee, and hints of multi-vitamins. Palate: Sweet and creamy with caramel and vanilla, nutmeg, notes of maple syrup, oatmeal raisin cookies (without the raisins), cinnamon, clove, and a mineral note. Finish: Moderately long with vanilla, light maple syrup, oaky spice and mineral notes. Comments: From everything I’ve read this is a blend of Tennessee whiskey from two distilleries, neither being Jack Daniels. Being 7 years old (although the bottle doesn’t include the age, not that I don’t trust the story), that whittles the list of potential distilleries down a fair amount. I definitely pick up some George Dickel (which isn’t a bad thing!), with their house style having those notes of multi-vitamins/minerals, although this is a bit more nuanced than that. Kudos to the blending team. This is a smooth, tasty whiskey. At $50, you’re paying a bit of a premium – but value is in the eye of the beholder.
