Excerpt: It imparts dark weighty fruit, blackened oak, cooked apple, and a twister of peppery turmoil. Add water liberally to unlock figs, dates, and plums.
Excerpt: Thick and spicy taste with strong black pepper on top of a caramel syrup note at the start, followed by cloying raisin and plum notes as the pepper fades. Finish is short and disappears quickly.
Excerpt: The palate is rich and fruity, with blackberries and plums, but it also has a nutty element, as well as cloves. Finally the finish shifts to a drier note, highlighted by tobacco leaves and cocoa.
Excerpt: The body is intense, a bruising collection of Madeira notes, rum-soaked raisins, burnt orange peel, and cocoa bean. Slightly bittersweet on the finish in the way that old sherry can be, it’s a digestif style whisky with plenty of depth and originality.
Excerpt: After my first bottle, I bought another. After my second bottle (this one), I bought two more. If that is not a testament to this whisky, nothing is. A must try whisky in our opinion.
Excerpt: A lot of the big guns in this sphere - GlenDronach and Glenfarclas walk the fine line between powerful and dominating and they do it with excellence. This is a clear example of a dram being dominated by sherry.
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House Review
Intro:
This is a young Taiwanese whiskey aged in sherry and bottled at cask strength. It is aged in Oloroso.
Nose:
Huge, rich, sherry on the nose. Syrupy, stewed fruits, honey, sulfur, pepper, Dole syrup. It's sherry kicked up to 11.
Taste:
Medium mouthfeel, rich sherry fruits. Sulfur is powerful here, lots of pepper, dry oak, tobacco and earthy cocoa. No underlying base spirit character at all - it's almost just a vehicle to get the most sherry possible to the consumers palate.
Finish:
Medium and super sweet - syrupy sherry is just dominating while the sulfur pounds your palate.
Overall:
This is unusual in that I think I've finally found a sherry bomb that's too sherry. A lot of the big guns in this sphere - GlenDronach and Glenfarclas walk the fine line between powerful and dominating and they do it with excellence. This is a clear example of a dram being dominated by sherry. It's going to need to be more complex next time in order to score better. I'm looking forward to trying the other Kavalan expressions I have lined up, though.
Score:
5
By t8ke
Our in house critic rates spirits on a scale of 0-10 (10 best) and is aggregated the same as external sources