Caol Ila is a name even if you’ve never seen it on a shelf or bought yourself (unlikely but go with us here) it’s surely cropped on the list of essential sprits, a common marker in blended scotches, and one of the premiere Islay scotches – (one of the older ones too). We, however, have yet to review it – well until now.
Maybe it’s the whole BMD incident from last week, but this being a blend of whiskey and other spirits (not the same thing, but the aroma and taste make it hard to discern.) Apologies we’ve not made it clear – this is a blended whiskey. However as we found out via the back – it’s not a blend of many whiskeys but a blend of bourbon and neutral spirits.
Right. So here at Honest Booze Reviews often a bottle is grabbed based solely on the criteria ‘don’t recognize that’. Now often this can mean we’ll end up with some weird things like vodka finished in cognac, berry gins, and peach whiskies. These by virtue of being offshoots with no baseline end up just not being reviewed. This however we decided we should dig into. We’ve often said that some high tier and well-aged rums or cognacs share a lot of similarities to whiskey. So what about this?
When one thinks of Dewar’s one often thinks of the more popular and widespread White Label. Instead of this one which has a label that’s wait. The White Label is a budget scotch, that frankly fails to compete with the likes of Johnnie Walker Red or Famous Grouse, but what if you actually give every whiskey the time to do its work.
A rye’s always a fun review in the lounge as it’s often accompanied by one of our favorite cocktails – and Old Fashioned, or as we like to call “The Litmus Test for Bars and Those Who Tend Them.” No in our minds when one asks for an ol’ fashioned you should be greeted with 1 question which is – which whiskey? The acceptable replies being a named bottle that you’ve already spotted, rye, or top-shelf rye.
So we have recently had the Bulleit 95, but thanks to our Father’s Day gift of whiskies to recommend we have the 12 year and figured we’d put this one on the usual Wednesday. This too unlike Cascade was also just a sample size, but unlike that French Oak Crown Royale – we wish we had a full bottle of this.
Once again in honor of Father’s day, we have another week of Whiskey on a Monday (the name of our Bukowski themed only-covers band). While we were not sent a full bottle of this like Cascade, we understand because this Crown Royal is nobler than that, and with a price to match. The quality though – well let’s just say there’s a reason we put this after the actual day we were asked to recommend it for.
Apologies if you feel by the calendar of our reviews that today is Wednesday, but we’ve made this and next week a bit special with whiskey for father’s day. This is primarily because we were given two spirits to review and possibly recommend for father’s day, and we start with this – Cascade a whiskey that has instructions for fishing on it.
We mentioned the week before about giving out a gift for the Christmas season (we know it’s April, friends in other states does this), and this is the companion piece – the gift to the lounge. We are willing to admit that in a blind buy we got better than we gave. While there are some niggling details here to stop this from being a darling, it’s a fine gift.
This was purchased for a friend as a Christmas gift, it was given to them in late April and then (among another 2 gifts) was forgotten here. So having taken some initial notes the night before, and a follow-up glass we bring you something unique. However much like that bent fork in your silverware drawer that you hate but won’t throw out, there are some downsides.
