| #351 Hogshead NAS Fine Old Blended Scotch | |||||||||||||||||||||
| This cost is what I found the likely shelf price for a 750ml bottle to be, based on an average of costs throughout the USA. Your price may differ significantly. This is not an advertisement of sale, this bottle is likely empty by now anyway Cost | $4000 |  | |||||||||||||||||||
| 68 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The whisky's score as weighed against the cost of a bottle. Adj. Score | 60 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ABV | 40% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Awards |  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Tasting # 383: More farm animals on my whisky labels (19-AUG-2009) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes | I've mentioned it before but at one point I was trying to put together an Old MacDonald themed taste event. There are just so many farm animals showing up on whisky labels, which baffles me and inspired me to try and lump them all in. Growing up in farming country, I had enough crossover between the animals outside and my dinner table. Now I've got them in my whisky glass! At least a hogshead has a real whisky connection: it's a barrel size. Note the lack of barrel pictures on the label. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1st Impression | There's a dirty pig staring at me. Why is there a filthy, mud-stained pig staring at me from the label? Did this pig make my whisky? | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Smell | The nose is nice. Peat and citrus flavors, orange zest, heather and a broad, earthy base. A bit of worry at the end as it sharpens noticeably. Still, for a fairly inexpensive blend this isn't a bad start. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Taste | Well, well mister dirty-feet pig. You're not at all what I expected. This clearly has a lot of Islay in the ingredient list. If I had to guess, I'd say it's mostly Lagavulin and Cragganmore (pairing two Diageo scotches) but it could easily be Bowmore carrying the peat. The front is very, very nice. A nice, peppery peat with just a beat of bite to shake things up leads quickly into a top where the peat gets a steady smoke flavor. Fruit and oak show up in the fade, spiced pears mostly but there's a great cooked cabbage flavor as well. As we get near the finish though, well... it's young and sharp. Quite sharp. There's an ongoing edge to the whole taste that starts with a flare up front, but here at the end it really starts to interfere. The whole finish is just undermined by a steady burn and it just doesn't work well. Sadly, this kills a strong 70+ point score and drags it down into just recommendable. High 60s. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Tasting Score | 68 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
| All trademarks and copyrighted material (bottle label content, product and brand names, etc) are the properties of their owners and are used here under the provisions of Fair Use for purposes of criticism and review. Reviews are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. They may be used, modified or distributed freely so long as "www.practicalwisky.net" is included. For more information, click → here ← Share and Enjoy |