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Cardhu Gold Reserve Single Malt Game of Thrones: House Targaryen
In honor of this past weekend’s debut of House of the Dragon on HBO, we have a special review for one of the bottles from the Diageo Game of Thrones Scotch series, which came out a few years ago. This, of course, is the House of Targaryen bottle, a Cardhu Gold Reserve. Warning, this review may be combustible…
Mortlach 12 “The Wee Witchie”
Our next review will be for a bottle that I first had the first summer of COVID when I started exploring various 12 year old expressions from distilleries that I had never tried before. The Mortlach 12 “The Wee Witchie” from The Beast of Dufftown.
The Balvenie DoubleWood 12
For the next review, we will visit the Balvenie DoubleWood 12. I previously did a review on the 17 year old version of this release, but that’s a bit pricey these days, so let’s dig into the more affordable option, which is also their core product. Check out my previous reviews (here, here, or here) for some backstory on Balvenie and the DoubleWood releases and to see some of their other releases….but this single malt was first aged in American Oak and then in European Oak.
Redbreast 12 Year Cask Strength
The final St. Patty’s Week Irish Whiskey review is for Redbreast 12 Year Old Cask Strength. I have had both the Redbreast 12 and the Redbreast Lustau before, but not the Cask Strength. The standard 12 Year Old is great, but my only qualm is the 40% ABV it’s bottled at. The Lustau, for those that do not know, is a NAS whiskey (rumored to be made from 9-12 year old juice), that is then finished in Oloroso sherry casks. I really liked the Lustau as well (bottled at 46%) and will have to pick up another bottle down the road for reviewing purposes. I am excited for the Cask Strength version to see what the Redbreast tastes like in its raw form without being watered down to 40%. Let’s see how it goes.
West Cork Single Malt Aged 12 Years Rum Cask Finished
We will be tasting Glendalough 13 Year Mizunara Finished Single Malt for our fourth Irish Whiskey of the week.
Initially, my good friend mentioned this bottle to me as something he had heard from his local liquor store guy. I remembered reading about this bottle in Whisky Advocate so I bought one the next time I saw one in my own local store. I figured I would crack it when my friend visited next….but things kept coming up and then COVID happened and well, this is my long winded way of saying that this bottle has collected dust, unopened on my shelf for 3+ years now. What better time to crack it open than for my debut St. Patty’s Day Week of Tastings?
Yellow Spot 12 Year Old
We will be tasting Yellow Spot 12 Year for our third Irish Whiskey of the week.
Previously, we reviewed the Green Spot Montelena Cask Finished whiskey. At its core, the Green Spot is a 7-10 year old expression that is aged in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. The Yellow Spot has a similar core, except aged for at least 12 years, with Malaga casks added to the maturation process in addition to the ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks.