Waterford: Peated Ballybannon 1.1 (Irish Single Malt Whisky: 3 Years: 50% ABV)
Visual: Pale grain gold color with fast, thick streaks coming from the spirit.
Nose: Barbecued pork. Menthol to mint. Crushed charcoal. Alcohol tingle. Gooseberries. Smoked dried beef. Figs. Water adds more charcoal, red grapes and cherry pocked biscuits.
Body: Smooth initially, then drying if held on the tongue. Dried beef slices. Dry peat smoke. White chocolate. Honey touch. Nutty. Red cherries. Green grapes. Water adds vanilla toffee, crusts of bread. Cherry pocked biscuits.
Finish: Charcoal dust. Dried beef. Dry smoke. Vanilla. Dry coconut. Spicy red wine. Water adds vanilla toffee. Vanilla yogurt. Green grapes. Dry charring. Cherry pocked biscuits.
Conclusion: On the surface level this is a fairly simple whisky – dry peat smoke and dry meat over a light green fruit touched base. At least that is what I got from it the first few times I poured this out just to enjoy for fun. Now I am taking my time to examine this for doing notes I am finding a lot more going on.
Neat it starts off fairly similar – a more fatty cooked meat note on the aroma compared to the drier meat smoke in the body, but still with a slight gooseberry aroma. Also a bit of the bourbon aging showing through in white chocolate and coconut notes. The peat is an easy going style similar to the highland take on peat and the body mainly a clean bourbon influence.
Then time and some air changed it, with more red fruit and red wine subtle notes showing through for a richer experience along with more notable sweetness. Now it is subtly complex and rewarding – the dry peat still leading, but with a lot to examine behind.
Water weakens it in my opinion. More bourbon styling come out in a very vanilla toffee way, and more obvious red fruit is there, so not all bad, and it is easier to drink, but it feels less vibrant on the tongue. It is a more mellow and merged experience. Good, but without the shine it has neat.
Overall a really good balance of peat and Waterford complexity and letting the barley shine. Needs time and examination as on surface level it is only ok, but let it open up and it will reward you.
Background: If you have been following the blog for a while you know my love for Waterford whisky – they make each release from a single farm’s barley, allowing them to really show off the effect of the environment on the growing and flavor of the barley. I have found it utterly enthralling and thankfully also enjoyable despite the youth of the whisky. They do very long and slow distilling and are very careful with the cut, which seems to reduce the roughness I would normally expect with whisky this young. Anyway at a recent horizontal Waterford whisky tasting they mentioned they were doing their first peated release – something that as a peat fan I was intrigued by, especially seeing how they could showcase the peat without losing that terroir idea of their whisky. Also in comes in a cool black box, and a black logo on the blue bottle which just looks ace. I am shallow. Anyway Independent Spirit got it in for me, and now I have it and I am drinking it. A win all round. I had recently heard Arch Enemy have a new album out, so went back to Arch Enemy: Will To Power for music while drinking.
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