Sweet Wine Cask Finished Whiskies Part 2 -- Leaning Towards Greatness Now...

Beer and Spirits
1

Yo Berserkz,

So in a previous thread I asked if cask-finished whisky was greatness or a gimmick. I just had two whiskies that settled it for me. Greatness it is… when done on the right whisky.

The McCallan 18 year old is pretty much whisky heaven in a glass and the sherry casking adds a great deal of depth to it without making it taste like someone just poured sherry into a bottle of whisky.

I admit I was hesitant because McCallan seems to be rather commercial to whisky in the way that Remy Martin and Courvoisier are to cognac i.e. charge double what an otherwise equal but smaller producer would charge. The $260 CDN price sure indicated so, a somewhat ironic $100 jump over their own Highland Park 18 Year Old which I consider to be just as great.

Fantastic nose on this one, doesn’t burn going up, smells more like hot buttered rum than it does whisky. I presume that’s the influence of the sherry casks. Unbelieveably smooth in the mouth, completely integrated alcohol with no burn, just a warm toasty taste of malted barley, vanilla, a touch of dried fruit and butter.

Holy crap this was good. I didn’t want my sample to end. It’s way out of my price range, though, so I hope the 15 year old which is made in the exact same way (though oddly not advertised as such) which is more affordable is just as good.

To compare, I had the Glenlivet XXV 25 year old which I suspected after tasting was also sherry cask finished and the good old interweb thingy we’re on confirms it.

Even more out of my range than the Macallan but oh so good. Liquid fruitcake topped with hard butter sauce in a glass. Extremely smooth and warming, more of a honey flavor than the Macallan and much richer due to the longer aging.

Wow. I am rapidly becoming a Dram Fan. The smoothness on these two whiskies was ridiculously good. I think the 12 year old cask finished Glenmorangies I previously wrote about could have been this great but are just too young. Really further cementing my belief to skip right past 12 year old whiskies amd move on to the 18 year olds. [cheers.gif]