Whiskey Wonka

Bought: Jan. 2011
Price: $50/375ml @ Binny’s
46% alc/vol
Pot-Distilled From Rye Grain
Stored in New Oak Less Than Four Years
Hand Crafted and Bottled by Tuthilltown Spirits, Gardiner, New York
First taste: @ Longman & Eagle, Chicago Dec. 2010
Tasting Date: 2/6/2011

Chalice: Glencairn glass

Color in glass: light, orangey-brown, copper yellow

Smell: sweet, broad, thinly-waxy spice, orange clove, sharpish Dr. Pepper nutmeg, pleasant wax candy reference.

Taste: Cool, popping, cinnaminty, grainy candy, very reminiscent of a fireball. Carbon, medicinal notes left behind on soft palate. Warmly herbal grass notes are sprinkled in the heat. That cinnamon candy finish keeps you coming back for more.

I get the sense that this young whiskey was somehow plucked from the barrel at the exact prime moment; days earlier would have left too much wax, more time in the barrel might turn it too sweet. The oak stretches out the bottom of the rye and impresses an older, wiser whiskey while the popping cinnamon top notes imbue a vivacious youth.

I have learned to seek in rye whiskeys the fresh, sparkling cinnamon notes that this Hudson Manhattan dramatically excels at. This whiskey truly emphasizes the cinnamon fireball character, and as such strikes me very much as a ’boutique’ whiskey, which is entirely consistent with all the buzz that surrounds Tuthilltown Spirits. The 375 ml bottling further reinforces the boutique-y, somewhat precious and even fragile aura the whiskey impresses upon me, and helps to define its categorization as a spirit. Sometimes I want a whiskey I can spend a whole night with; this is not one that lends itself to such occasions. Rather, its place for me, maybe like a cordial, is in the realm of small tastings and special celebrations. It is amazingly creative and generous with quality, but for me there’s a degree of romance it sacrifices for craft, like it’s been self-consciously directed in its expression.

375 ml Value: $30/$50

~ by WhiskeyWonka on February 12, 2011.

Posted in American