We almost considered not doing this as a traditional whiskey due to the coffee’s effect. However aside from their clear spirit, this is their main aged bourbon, and their choice of a barrel (much like a sherry cask) will simply be an artifact of our review against them. That review sadly is poor.
We just had two weeks of something we liked – how about we let some god damned nonsense bilge water ruin it? Hello folks, and welcome to HBR where we’re proud to tell this specific vodka company to go suck an ostrich egg because they basically did something as bad by giving us this.
Patron Silver was one of our earliest reviews, embodying the well know stance of shouting “PATROOOON” in your college dorm. We much like this tequila have done a lot of growing up from the ‘Sex, drugs, and dubstep’ phase. (We have not really). This Patron is certainly not the oaky and wood flavored you may have signed up for – but it will surprise you.
This is normally the bit where we talk about how this relates to the regular version and what the distillery specific breed brings to the table. (But we’ve not actually done that yet – our bad). In fact, the only thing we’ve done that’s dealt with Caol Ila on this site is its inclusion into Johnnie Walker Green (which is defunct). But that’s okay.
When you get down to it, gin is just a weirdly flavored vodka via some juniper or spices no one can pronounce and often clog up a spice rack. So when you make a gin there are a few ways to lean. Some go more juniper heavy, others citrus, some floral. Langley’s answers the question of what if a gin went full power?
If we’ve ever laid anything of simmering anger at the door of Belvedere it’s that some people associate it and their frosted bottle with higher tier vodka (it’s not). So strap in folks because this will not be a kind review to Sobieski which would be better served clearing snow off of your skiing boots than sipped back at the lodge.
(Disclaimer we have no idea how skiing works, and if that’s a thing you do)
So we’ve always been a bit apprehensive of the Fiddich, namely because while they deserve the store presence they often get and are by no measure have made a bad whiskey, they’ve always been – just slightly above average. It seems though just a few extra years of aging allows it to set itself apart though.
We had a thought looking at the tag of this rum, and it was – oh like an evidence tag used to identify the poison that killed the Mr. Cottonsword. How prophetic we were. We always strive to find the diamond in the rough, but because such a thing is possible there’s always the wasp in the beehive. Hold on not sure if this metaphor is working.
If we were a cynical lot we’d say that this vodka represents the dark side of supposed family owned or built empires as this is merely a shadow – a homage to a grandparent with no real prominence. We aren’t though because in truth we don’t care about old families or recipes anyway (unless it’s you know – good). What does gall our stones though is the sadness of a local boy who’s just awful at making vodka.
Once again a victory scotch from the duty-free store graces our doors. (It’s a victory because getting back home at 1 am after 14 hours of travel needs a drink). We have a special ‘town & year’ version of Glen Scotia, and sadly we don’t have a baseline with their malt to compare against as what we find here was less of a victory, and more of a loss at the end of a long day.
