My favourite from the tasting. The Imperial Stout casks have generated not only chocolate and coffee notes but also fruit and some herbal notes too. 84/100
Hinch Craft & Casks Imperial Stout Finish
Hinch Craft & Casks Rye Export Stout Finish
Another interesting and very different beer-cask finish from Hinch. The Rye Export Stout has imbued some earthy dark chocolate and coffee notes. 82/100
Hinch Craft & Casks Irish Red Rye Finish
Another interesting and very different beer-cask finish from Hinch. The Red Rye casks introduce some zesty and spicy elements but also highlight plenty of cereal nature of the base blend. 83/100
Hinch New Make Spirit
Plenty of character and a well structured new make. A promising base spirit for experimenting with maturation and beer cask finishing.
Irish Single Malt #2 15 Years Old Batch 6
Sweet and clean, creamy and with plenty of fruit suggestive of mostly spirit and ex-Bourbon maturation keeping things fairly straightforward and enjoyingly simple. A touch odd in the finish – perhaps indicative of the distillate source? 85/100
Yellow Spot 12 Years Old
Very much Pot still style, woody and spice driven familiar from unmalted barley. Plenty of yellow/stone fruits present in here despite the unusual cask combination used, I’d have expected something a little darker and drier like fruitcake, instead it is peached and cream. 84/100
Teeling Stout Cask Finish
An unusual but very nice/enjoyable expression, this still has quite a lot of citrus aroma and flavour from the base whiskey blend but it is not sharp/acidic and compliments well the very creamy chocolate nature derived from the stout casks.
Dingle Single Malt
A delicious introduction to Dingle distillery and rather accomplished for its age, rewarding the use of 1st fill casks this is rich and fruity and has plenty of chewy woody influence too.
Redbreast 10 Years Old Cask Strength Batch 1
Rich and full Pot Still whisky expression, great depth of distillate here lending generous ‘heavy’ character, leathery spice offset by sweet and fruity cask influences. I can only guess at the historic 10 year old profile but this new re-imagining of the 10 year old expression certainly fits in my mind to what it could have been. 87/100
Bushmills 2001 Feuillette Cask
An interesting twist on Bushmills, perhaps I expected much more wood influence here using the slightly smaller cask for finishing and I wasn’t quite expecting such a strong influence of the Burgundy red wine. As the first ‘cask strength’ and red wine finished versions for the UK this does present something a little different from Bushmills.
The Whiskyphiles 