Penderyn: Peated (Wales Single Malt Whisky: 46% ABV)
Visual: Pale greened grain body. Slow thick streaks from the spirit.
Nose: Soot. Dried beef slices. Touch of salt. Water makes lightly medicinal and cleaner.
Body: Soot. Vanilla toffee. Light alcoholic lime jelly. Light salt. Moderately thick texture. Slightly oily. Dried beef. Charred meat bits. Water make slightly medicinal and more lime touches. Cleaner. Fudge. Red apples.
Finish: Alcoholic lime jelly. Soot. Dried beef slices. Slightly oily and sticky. Slight charring. Vanilla toffee.
Conclusion: I find this quite interesting in that, for the most part, it is quite a clean take on a peated whisky. It reminds me somewhat of the peated Ardmore take on the style – slightly highland influenced. However there is just a touch of that thicker, chewier, slightly clinging Penderyn style that I have started considering the distilleries’ house character.
Initially I found it odd that it also had a slightly salty, lightly medicinal note – something that especially came out with water. It is not a heavy note, but is not something I would associate at all with Wales, and more with the island and especially Islay style of whisky character. However, since originally writing these notes and before uploading I found out that the peat here comes from it spending time in ex Islay whisky casks rather than from having the malt be peat smoked, which explains a lot! I had worried I was being massively psychosomatically influenced in my tasting. Anyway, yeah that subtle take on the Islay character can be seen here, lightly adding to a much more gentle, sweeter and closer to Highland like character of a Welsh whisky.
The odd thickness of Penderyn still comes across, that subtly oily, clingy, slightly sticky character and gives a unique take to what would otherwise be a fine, but slightly generic whisky.
It is solid, a few apple and lime like fruit notes round it off, adding to a gently sweet and thick Penderyn base and that Islay cask influence making for something recognisably Penderyn but a but more peatier, saltier and more medicinal than you would expect, just gently so.
A gentle sipping take on a harsher style of whisky. Not a must have, but not bad for the price and probably goes better in a session than most peaty whiskies. Again Penderyn surprise me with how far that have come from their early, terrible days.
Background: Third and final of the Penderyn set I got from The Whisky Shop. I had grabbed them as a) something to have between opening new large bottles of whisky so to pace them out and b) to return to Penderyn after a long gap as when I first encountered the distillery I was not too impressed and wanted to see how they had changed. So far I have been very surprised with the quality of the whisky compared to when I first encountered it. As mentioned in the notes, this is not traditionally peated, instead being initially aged in bourbon casks, then given extra aging in ex Islay whisky casks to provide the peat. An unusual method, though I have seen a few other new whiskies do similar. I did not know this when I first did the notes, so finding that out explained a lot. Also the quick googling I did to find that out also told me this whisky has a Kosher certificate – dunno how common that is, not heard of it before, but if that is relevant to you, there you go. Apparently only 5000 70cl bottles of this are released a year. Not sure how many minis they do on top of that.
