Red Breast: Cask Strength 12: 2018 Edition (Irish Single Pot Still Whiskey: 12 Year: 58.2% ABV)
Visual: Bright honeyed gold, streaks come down as a thick sheet.
Nose: Dried apricot. Vanilla. Honey. Green grapes. Sultanas. Thick and smooth. Shredded wheat. Smoke wisp. Water makes more gentle. Touch of liquorice. Golden syrup sponge.
Body: Honey. Warming alcohol. Apricot. Plums. Mince pies. Water adds oats and muesli. Lots of honey. Buttery. Vanilla fudge.
Finish: Honey. Apricot. Vanilla toffee. Brandy cream. Fig rolls. Water makes a more spirity air. Buttery.
Conclusion: This is very rich and strong – as you may expect from a cask strength whiskey this has more alcohol weight that your average Red Breast, but thankfully still manages to come across fairly smooth. The flavours are pushed up a bit as well – fruity apricot notes matched with a huge amount of sherry influence, giving lots of dark fruit and brandy cream styled notes.
Neat it is intense and fruity, full bodied despite the smoothness. It has a tad too much alcohol, but generally great. I minorly prefer their exceptional Lustra Edition of Red Breast for overall balance and smoothness. This however has a weight and quality all of its own. Water makes it a little smoother, but with that it loses a lot of the range, weight and joy that makes it special. Still, it has a lot to offer even then – still lovely with crumpet like notes and toffee, more gentle sweetness and because of that more towards a standard 12 year Red Breast. Which is still good. However if you have gone to the effort of getting a Cask Strength I would guess you want that, otherwise you could just buy a standard edition.
So, if you want this, accept its weight and the alcohol that will come with it and all that comes with that. This is a rough edged gem if taken as it should be – neat – but gives you plenty in exchange.
Background: Uber whisky time again at Independent Spirit. I love these events, where you get to try some pretty rare whisky that would normally be prohibitively expensive by the dram. As always with events like these, it was a busy event, with talking and other people describing notes so I may have been influenced by that and my notes may be shorter and more incoherent than even normal.
Now this is something interesting as it is hard to find since Jim Murray labelled this batch, Batch B1-17, as best best Irish whiskey and best Irish pot still whiskey. As was pointed out at the tasting this year’s batch will be out soon at far more reasonable price and for far less cost (for a while at least). I’ve become a huge fan of Red Breast over the years, so this was a rare treat to check out.
