Kavalan Series Part 8 of 10 - Kavalan Solist Fino Sherry Cask Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the eighth in a series of ten Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is that fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously brought back one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs back from Taiwan for me. Thus far in the series we have had:

1. Classic Single Malt

2. Concertmaster Single Malt

3. Podium Single Malt

4. King Car Conductor Single Malt

5. Peaty Cask Single Malt

6. Solist ex-Bourbon Cask Single Malt

7. Solist Oloroso Sherry Cask Single Malt

Up today is the third of the Solists, this one being the Fino Sherry Cask. As pointed out in previous reviews, the proof on the Solists are much more in my wheelhouse and when it comes to malt whiskeys, sherry finishes are my jam so I am excited for this.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 54% ABV

Nose: A bit charry and wood heavy with a nice fruity sherry backbone. I also get notes of tobacco and maybe some cigar-like aromas too. I am not getting as much of the tell-tale tropical island fruit vibes in the nose as I have in the other Kavalans to this point.

Taste: On the palate it opens up quite a bit more than the nose. There are classic high proof sherry finished malt whisky notes of sugar coated raisins and honey coated cereal/bran. The familiar island fruit notes that have dominated this series are now showing up as there is a good dose of lush mango/pineapple/kiwi types flavors in the mid palate.  Like the nose there are some leather / tobacco qualities on the back end and finish. The proof is delivering plenty of depth of flavor as there are healthy doses of wood, fruit, sweet, and char.

Thoughts: This one is pretty good but not a real standout to me. The nose is a little coy and doesn't quite match the taste but the palate rewards with most of what I was looking for. To me it just falls a little flat all round, especially compared to the Oloroso Sherry Cask which is the proofy sherry bomb that is more my comfort zone.

Rating: B

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

 

Kavalan Series Part 7 of 10 - Kavalan Solist Oloroso Sherry Cask Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the seventh in a series of ten Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously brought back one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs back from Taiwan for me. Thus far in the series we have had:

1. Classic Single Malt

2. Concertmaster Single Malt

3. Podium Single Malt

4. King Car Conductor Single Malt

5. Peaty Cask Single Malt

6. Solist ex-Bourbon Cask Single Malt

Up today is the second of the Solists, this one being the Oloroso Sherry Cask variant. As someone who heavily leans towards favoring port and sherry finishes when it comes to malts, I am looking forward to this one. Bonus on top of that is the proof on these Solists is much more in my wheelhouse so I think this will go well.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 54% ABV

Color: I don't usually remark on color but this definitely the darkest of the bunch so far. It is a deep, almost ruby brown.

Nose: Very sweet and fruity but more traditional Scotch/Bourbon sweets and fruits than the island type fruitiness I have been getting in the others. There is woody caramel, red fruit like cherries/apples, and raisiny type scents. It's very compact and dense compared to the others.

Taste: A flavor bomb of caramel, red fruits and sugary dates. Upfront is just an explosion of flavor that then rounds off with some woodiness and a touch of spice. It tastes like it has a lot of maturity because there is tons of depth in flavor. On top of that the mouthfeel is viscous, thick, and chewy - way more dense than any of the others. 

Thoughts: I assumed I was going to like this one but I am surprised by how much this impressed me. I expected something with a sherry slant on the typical island fruitiness I get in the others but instead this drinks like a traditional, mature, high proof Scotch sherry bomb. It's got maturity, sweetness, fruitiness, and a heavy mouthfeel - pretty much the whole package I look for in a malt. I have a feeling this will be my favorite in the series.

Rating: B+/A-

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

 

Kavalan Series Part 6 of 10 - Kavalan Solist ex-Bourbon Cask Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the sixth in a series of ten Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously brought back one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs back from Taiwan for me. Thus far in the series we have had:

1. Classic Single Malt

2. Concertmaster Single Malt

3. Podium Single Malt

4. King Car Conductor Single Malt

5. Peaty Cask Single Malt

Today we have finally made it into the Solists which I am a lot more excited about than other samples thus far, not only because the finishes look more interesting but the proof on these should be more in my wheelhouse. Today we will be covering the ex-Bourbon Cask which is a cask strength non chill filtered single malt aged in former Bourbon casks. As a brief reminder, I am mostly an American whiskey drinker who occasionally dabbles in malts so take that for what it is worth.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 54% ABV

Nose: Smells like a very bourbony malt. The barley grain base is definitely there but it's backed up by a lot of the vanilla caramel notes from a traditional American whiskey. On top of all that there is the island fruitiness I keep getting in all of these.

Taste: Upfront there is a big wallop of those island fruits like coconut and papaya. The mid palate is sugary and rich with a lot of cereal raisin notes that I often find in sherry finished Scotch. The finish rounds off with some smoky charred oak and caramelized toffee which must be the bourbon cask influence. There is a bit of heat that wasn't present in any of the previous drams but that also brings more richness and viscosity.

Thoughts: This one is pretty good - it doesn't have any super unique stand out qualities but then again it doesn't have any major flaws. It's pretty solid overall even if it doesn't wow you. I am really starting to enjoy this island fruit vibe all of these have, it's complemented nicely by the malt grains and keeps making me think this is what a Fruity Loops Raisin Bran cereal collab would be like in whisky form.

Rating: B / B-

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

 

Kavalan Series Part 5 of 10 - Kavalan Distillery Reserve Peaty Cask Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the fifth in a series of 10 Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously brought back one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs back from Taiwan for me. Thus far in the series we have had:

1. Classic Single Malt

2. Concertmaster Single Malt

3. Podium Single Malt

4. King Car Conductor Single Malt

Today we will be covering the Peaty Cask which according to their website is a distillery exclusive. Most information online I've found indicates it is not itself peated but was aged in former Islay Scotch casks. As a brief reminder, I am mostly an American whiskey drinker who occasionally dabbles in malts so take that for what it is worth.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 50% ABV

Nose: Bourbon like scents of vanilla / caramel and a chargrilled fruit meat medley. This does not have the "box of bandaids from a burned down hospital" peated whisky note like a Laphroaig but I can definitely pick up on some earthy peat aromas. I would have guessed Scotch finished bourbon from the nose.

Taste: More sweet notes like creamy butterscotch, a good amount of cereal grains, and charred tropical fruits like pineapple. Mouthfeel is thicker and more oily than all those sampled thus far. Again like the nose this is by no means an ashtray laden peat smoke bomb but the Islay cask aging is definitely noticeable, particularly in the finish that rides out for quite a while with some scorched earth notes.

Thoughts: This edges out as my favorite thus far in the series, slightly ahead of the Concertmaster. I am not a huge peat head but I do enjoy them every once and in a while and this scratches that itch. The tropical fruit presence is there but not as forward as in the others, I believe due to being rounded out by the smoky peat notes. Overall I found this the most interesting yet as it has the best mouthfeel and the biggest range of flavors from sweet to fruit to smoke so it's much more dimensional.

Rating: B-

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

Kavalan Series Part 4 of 10 - Kavalan King Car Conductor Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the fourth in a series of 10 Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously brought back one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs back from Taiwan for me. Thus far in the series we have had:

1. Classic Single Malt
2. Concertmaster Single Malt
3. Podium Single Malt

Today we will be covering King Car Conductor which I can't find much credible information on how it was aged so all we can say is NAS whisky. As a brief reminder, I am mostly an American whiskey drinker who occasionally dabbles in malts so take that for what it is worth. This is the last sub 50% ABV whisky in the mix, so I think things should be looking up from here as the coming samples are likely much more my style.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 46% ABV

Nose: Mostly caramel / honey sweets and grains, like sugar coated bran cereal. There is some of the calling card tropical fruit I have found in all the whiskies in this series thus far as well. It is very bourbon like to some extent, minus the lack of corn grain flavors. The nose is a little flat - maybe the most boring yet.

Taste: A lot like the nose - upfront is floral and sweet, then transitions to juicy island fruits like bananas and pineapples, and then the finish rounds out with a little bit of dry baking spice and what I would describe as powdery runts candy. The finish is rather short and the heat is pretty minimal, about what I'd expect for 86 proof. It drinks like a fruity, bourbony Scotch. 

Thoughts: This was okay. Again I appreciate the fruity tropical forward notes I am finding in all of these Kavalans but this one didn't have much else to wow me. On the plus side, it didn't have the earthiness or bitterness I found in some of the other ones, so I can find no real flaws other than it just being a little flat for my tastes. I'd imagine at ~50% I'd like this quite a bit more.

Rating: C / C+

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

Kavalan Series Part 3 of 10 - Kavalan Podium Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the third in a series of 10 Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously brought back one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs back from Taiwan for me. Thus far in the series we have had:

1. Classic Single Malt
2. Concertmaster Single Malt

Today we will be covering Podium, which is aged in a combination of new American oak and refill casks. Nothing terribly exciting about those stats but I am glad to be done with the 80 proofers. As a brief reminder, I am mostly an American whiskey drinker who occasionally dabbles in malts so take that for what it is worth.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 46% ABV

Nose: Bourbon like scents of vanilla and caramel but with a Scotch twist - grain cereal instead of corn cereal. The fruit notes are lighter than the previous whiskies but still definitely tropical in nature. The new American oak usage sticks out to me as there are some prominent tannic wood notes too. 

Taste: Starts off with a lot of honey and sugary grains and then finishes with wallop of tropical fruits, like juicy fruit gum. Once the fruit rollercoaster ends there is some astringent and charry oak at play as well which lingers as slightly bitter wood tannins. 

Thoughts: I'm now convinced tropical fruits are indeed the calling card of Kavalan and while they were hiding in the nose here, they certainly come through in the palate. The mid and back palate are just an explosion of luscious island fruits which are the star of the show. Having said that, there is an astringency here that wears on me and it finished out longer than the fruitiness. I suspect that is a byproduct of the new American oak and the aggressive climate these are aged in. All in all I really enjoyed the flavors and the proof gives it enough body to be more in my wheelhouse but I would have preferred less astringency.

Rating: C / C+

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

Kavalan Series Part 2 of 10 - Kavalan Concertmaster Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the second in a series of 10 Kavalan whisky reviews. You can read more background in part 1 but the TL;DR version is fellow local redditor /u/onewaybackpacking graciously muled one of these cool Kavalan sampler packs out of Taiwan for me. Today we will be covering Concertmaster, which is a single malt first finished American oak and then finished in a variety of Portuguese port casks. I am usually a fan of port finished whisky and port itself so I am looking forward to this one. As a brief reminder, I am mostly an American whiskey drinker who occasionally dabbles in malts so take that for what it is worth.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 40% ABV

Nose: Like the previous single malt, it is very tropical fruity and sweet with honey and sugary grain notes. What this has over the classic malt though is the red fruit notes are way ramped up. While I detected a twinge of sherry/port finish in the first one, the port finish is very evident here.

Taste: Tastes as it smells - sweet, super fruity, sugary grain, and a fruit heavy finish. The fruitiness really shines as it's a range of island fruits and red fruits. I assume that range is the variety of port casks this was finished in but I am also starting to think tropical fruits might be a calling card of Kavalan. In the back palate and finish there is a little bit of earthiness like bitter tannins / dirty oak.

Thoughts: This is a step up over the regular classic single malt. Whereas that one had some tropical notes and then mostly just classic single malt flavors, this ramps up the sweet fruit notes all over the place. It's slightly bonkers how fruity this is. As for the negatives, as someone who prefers higher proof whiskies, this is a bit thin and lacking in the amount of depth I prefer. I could also do without the touch of earthiness but overall this was pretty good. On a more positive note, I believe this was the last 80 proofer in the series so the thinness issues should start going down as we move forward.

Rating: C+ / B-

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.

Kavalan Series Part 1 of 10 - Kavalan Classic Single Malt Whisky Review

Here is the first in a series of 10 Kavalan whisky reviews. The background here is a few years ago a local fellow redditor /u/onewaybackpacking who was vacationing in Taiwan graciously offered to pick up one of these awesome Kavalan sampler packs. I had always meant to sample and review them as a series, so here is that long overdue set of reviews. Sorry it took me so long, dude.

I am mostly a bourbon and rye man so I am by no means an expert in malt whiskies but I do enjoy them on occasion and have covered a few in my ~350 spirits reviews. Prior to this my experience with Kavalan was pretty limited to only a few of their special releases but I do know their aggressive climate can help impart a lot of flavor even at a young age. Knowing how my tastes go, my fondness will probably go up as the proof rises.

Taiwanese Single Malt Whisky; No Age Statement; 40% ABV

Nose: Very fruity and sweet. Lots of honey and sweet grain notes, like sugary raisin bran but with mangos instead of raisins. There is a lot of fruit here, was this aged in former sherry casks?

Taste: No real departure from the nose. It is light and delicate with mostly sweet tropical fruits and some grainy notes like bran cereal.

Thoughts: This is decent enough - it's super fruity and very drinkable. The most interesting thing I find is just how tropical the fruit notes are, which is something I am not really used to in the American whiskey world. My complaints are that it doesn't have a lot of depth, neither in the sweet flavors or woody range and overall it is rather thin. I think those are all mostly due to 80 proof being below my wheelhouse though so your mileage may vary. 

Rating: C

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating. 

Amrut Spectrum 004 Review

Here's a review I did as part of the /r/worldwhisky March community review. I don't know a lot about Amrut other than they are based in India and known for their malt whiskeys. I don't know everything about their climate but looking at their average temperatures month to month it seems to be a rather hot environment so I assume that has a dramatic effect on their aging process. I previously reviewed their Portonova and quite liked it a lot - enough so that I recently bought a bottle even at the high asking price of around $140.

There have been several batches of Spectrum and from what gather, all of them have had different barrel maturations. Today we have 004, which the Amrut website describes as follows:

To make the Spectrum 004, a two part maturation technique has been employed, the first being maturation of New Make spirit in ex-Bourbon casks followed by transferring the aged spirit into the custom barrels. The custom barrels are made with 4 different kinds of staves , new American Oak with Char level 3, new French Oak with light toasting, ex-Olorosso staves and ex-PX Sherry staves. The aforementioned barrel has equal proportions of all four kinds of staves arranged in a one-after-the-other manner lending their own characteristics and complexities to the malt coming into its own on the nose and the palate.

No Age Statement; 50% ABV; thanks to /u/washeewashee for the sample (image taken from Amrut's website)

Nose: Raisins, cereal grains, and honey - it is definitely a malt and there is definitely some sherry influence. There is also a little bit of an off phenolic note like charcoal. It breaths kind of warm, I might have guessed higher than 50%.

Taste: Honey coated raisin cereal up front, fruit notes like prunes and figs in the middle, dry charred wood and more charcoal phenol notes in the end. There is plenty of wood influence driving all that flavor. It's rich and packs a lot of density for only being 50% ABV.

Thoughts: I had no idea what to expect here but I like it. Unlike some other whiskeys I've had that were aged in extreme climates, there aren't a lot of really off funky notes that I would normally associate with rapid aging. When it comes to malts my preferences always lie with the more heavily sherried and preferably cask strength whiskeys but this has enough wood and sherry influence to keep me interested. My only real complaint is the char notes seemed a little heavy handed - I guess I am not quite used to freshly charred oak being at play in most of the malts I've tried.

Rating: B

Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating. 

Amrut Portonova Review

This is another review I did as part of the Reddit /r/worldwhisky series of community reviews. As such, I don’t really know a lot about this but according to Whisky Advocate, the aging here is a wild ride that involves fresh casks, used bourbon casks, and port pipes. Other commentary suggests it’s not very old so I suspect it will be a bit rough around the edges but hopefully the port influence will make things interesting.

 

No Age Statement; 62.1% ABV; Thanks to /u/sberto for the sample

Nose: Very fruity nose. Smells like jam covered toast. It reminds me a lot of a high proof sherry finished Scotch such as Macallan Cask Strength. The nose is surprisingly tame on the alcohol front given that it’s over 60% ABV.

Taste: Upfront there is lots of red and dark fruit sweetness with bread and cereal grains towards the mid palate. Near the finish I get a lot of smoky and salty savory notes - something like smoked / dry aged meats. The port influence is very heavy handed all the way through to the very end.

Thoughts: This is intense stuff. It’s way better than I expected and certainly not the complete mess that some younger craft style spirits can be at such a high proof. The fruity port influence and smoky savory notes make this a very delicious whiskey. If I had to be critical, I would say that it lacks finesse as it drinks pretty hot. What it lacks in complex subtleties though it makes up for with bold, brash punch you in the mouth flavor.

Rating: B+

Value: As always, I don’t factor price into my ratings. I believe this retails for around $125 a bottle. While that is overpriced, I’ve paid a lot more for things that weren’t as good as this.