Bushmills: 18 Year Three Wood – Colheita Port (Irish Single Malt Whiskey: 18 Years: 46% ABV)
Visual: Dark reddened bronze color. Medium speed and thickness streaks come from the spirit.
Nose: Stewed apricot. Alcohol tingle. Uncooked rice. Burnt sugar. Thick. Fruitcake. Fig rolls. Dried apricot. Water adds spiced treacle and dry sherry.
Body: Treacle. Warming. Plums. Dry raisins. Savoury touch to port notes. Black cherry. Water makes smoother. Fruitcake. Apple touches. Pear drops. Charring. Oily. Orange skin.
Finish: Crumpets. Light tarry note. Slight charring. Chewy feeling port notes. Broccoli. Drying. Turmeric. Water makes spirit soaked cake sponge. Ginger. Oily feeling port notes.
Conclusion: Oh yes, first up, this is further evidence for my campaign to have more Bushmills bottled at 46% abv or above, as the extra it is giving it here is just amazing.
The time in the port pipes also definitely helps as well, oh it helps a lot, as does the tidy 18 years of age, so lets not discount all them, but I am convinced that if they bottled this at 40% it would have lost a lot of what really made it stand out.
This is a heavier Bushmills than most to say the least. Not heavy heavy, but definitely heavier. It just screams stewed fruit, sticky spirit drinks, dark fruit and burnt sugars. The thing is, despite that, it is still very recognisably Bushmills – if you can accept the little bit of extra alcohol tingle it is so easy to drink, and it you can’t then a few drops of water does the job in soothing it out.
What is interesting is just a small amount of water, not enough to drop the abv too much, starts showing a lot of the classic Bushmills green fruit notes as well, against this big dark fruit flavours. That part is why this is one of my favorite Bushmills ever, and also I think shows why that extra abv helps. It gives enough push that the base character can show off against the immense barrel aging flavour, creating a complex and yet easy sipping dram.
Absolutely lovely, now please give me a 50% abv Bushmills 10 so we can see what the extra abv would allow the standard drop to do.
Background: So, this is, much later than the others, the final drink from my South Korea visit. Grabbed from duty free on the way back, I was very excited to get this one, and also very nervous as in Amsterdam airport they took it out of its sealed bag to scan it! Thankfully they did not confiscate it. It was at the time an Asia exclusive travel release, I think it is now a general travel release, any which way, no way I was not grabbing this. 18 Years, single malt, aged in Sherry, Bourbon and Colheita Port casks and best of all, at 46% a bit stronger than your average Bushmills. I love Bushmills but sometimes the 40% abv does feel like it doesn’t let it fully express itself. I would love the core range to be available in limited releases at a higher abv. Even better it was just under a hundred pounds, which while not cheap, is good value for a release like this. So, about half a year later I am finally doing notes on it. Music wise, I wanted something lovely in the background, so went with Wintersun: Time and I.
