Bain’s Cape Mountain Single Grain Whisky

Bain's Cape Mountain Single Grain Whisky

Today we are a new whisky of the world, Bain’s Cape Mountain Single Grain Whisky from South Africa.  Oddly enough, for a Boston-based review site, I have a tremendous amount of support from South Africa.  In an attempt to say thank you, I thought I would seek out a South African whisky to review.  I found Bain's Cape Mountain after doing some internet sleuthing a while back but unfortunately the closest available bottle was all the way down on Long Island, NY.  Luckily I had a friend visiting that area last week and he picked up a bottle for me. 

ABV: 43%

How it smells…light, with a little sweetness like confectioners’ sugar, caramel and some honeyed berries. 

How it tastes…apples and some caramel notes at the onset where it gets sugary sweet towards the end.  The finish has some nice peppery spice to balance out the sweet build throughout the sip. 

Price…$35

Rating...🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃

Final thoughts….for a $35, NAS whisky I really liked this and it makes me even happier that I was able to enjoy this after hunting it down 3 states away and wanting to provide a South African review for a large part of my following base.  If I didn’t like it…. well that would have been embarrassing.  But honestly, this was a great sip, especially for the summer heat.  You get a ton of sweetness but also some depth with the caramel notes in addition to that nice peppery finish.  The single grain in this is corn, which makes me liking it even more surprising.  I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and I tend to be disappointed with corn whiskies or bourbons with extremely high corn content (Dickel) but this one had a nice balance. It also reminds me of a nice soft Irish Whiskey with the sweet apple notes.  I think 5x 🥃 given how cheap it is, but also how much I enjoyed it.  It’s a great easy sipper that you might call “crushable”.  I will keep this bottle in stock insofar as I can find it.

As I mentioned above, this is a single grain whisky where the single grain used is yellow corn.  Corn tends to give a sweeter profile to the whiskey.  In bourbons, I tend to not enjoy ones that are super high on the corn content in the mash bill (>80%).  Perhaps it’s then the added sweetness of the newly charred oak barrel used in bourbon maturation, which adds additional vanilla sweetness.  Again, I don’t have a sweet tooth.  This bottle is aged twice, first for 3 years in first-fill American Oak casks that previously aged bourbon then in a fresh set of casks for another 18-30 months, making this a 4+ to 5+ year aged whisky.  

The Cape Mountain is made by the James Sedgwick Distillery, which apparently also makes Three Ships Whisky.  Three Ships appears to be their line of age-statement single malts and blended releases.  These look interesting, but I’m not sure how readily available they are in the States.