Midleton: Green Spot (Irish Pot Still Whiskey: 40% ABV)
Visual: Bright yellowed gold. Fast sheet from the spirit, then thin secondary streaks.
Nose: Slight alcohol and grain. Bright lime notes and kiwi notes. Later on dried banana comes out. Dried apricot. Slight golden syrup and pencil shavings. Adding water makes very light.
Body: Smooth and light. Honey. Slight alcohol. Custard. Pears. Water adds apples. Makes lighter. Adds more pears.
Finish: Pears. Custard. Apricot syrup. Honey. Light tannins. Light oak. Water adds a green fruit sheen. Slight cardboard. Banana.
Conclusion: Darn Irish whiskey is smooth, especially this one we have here. Even with the small amounts of grain and alcohol notes from what I presume is younger spirit, this still is super smooth, light and easy to drink. Just what I need as a change after having a few heavy duty Islays over the past few weeks. Water manages to take out the small alcohol harshness pretty much completely as well.
As a whiskey it is mainly a game of two halves, with the emphasis of the whiskey decided by if you have added water or not.
One side is light, sweet honey and golden syrup. The aroma promises banana, but the actualisation of this is put off until much later. Generally it is sweet, easy going, but with a subtly honeyed weight. The very, very slightest weight, In general this is soft and easy drinking.
The other side is paying off a lot of what is promised by the aroma, but this side is only shown if water is added. Soft green fruit comes out, initially lime in the aroma, then apples and pears in the main body. As mentioned, neat it really doesn’t show too much of this but water brings it out in full flow. However this does come at the expense of a lot of the honey notes vanishing, along with the slightly thicker texture. It feels just a tad too light here in mouthfeel.
So, on balance I would say this is just slightly better neat. It is not as complex, but the extra grip to the mouthfeel makes it such a pleasant one to spend some time with. I wonder if a slightly higher abv would help or hinder this? Dunno, but I would love to try it to see.
So you have to pick between great texture, or good variety of flavor – it never quite manages to bring both at the same time, but still a fine easy sipping whiskey.
Background: I have been meaning to do notes on this for a while. I tried an unusual barrel aged version of this at the #Brisdram event a while back and it was great, then I tried Green Spot at The Hideout during an amazing Midleton whiskey tasting event. So, when I saw a mini of this in Independent Spirit I grabbed it to bring back and give a proper going over. The name of the whiskey relates to the markings they used to use on barrels to indicate their age – Blue was seven years, Green ten, Yellow twelve and Red fifteen. However a quick google indicates that the age statement has been removed from green spot whiskey recently due to it now using a mix of between seven and ten year old whiskey. Cheeky if so. I’d been re-watching new Doctor Who recently before drinking this, and had noticed one of the character’s had a Slayer t-shirt on, resulting in me using Reign In Blood as the background music for this, despite it not exactly matching thematically.
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