So. Sunday was week two of the #DavinTT on twitter. Did you make it? Did you go buy the book, read up and ask a question? Did you at least follow along? I hope you did, I had a blast.
As with last week we spent the first half hour or so asking questions of Davin de Kergommeaux. He did his best to answer them all. And even though I read the book (parts of it twice) I still learned something. The beauty of this type of group discussion is that the information that is in the book inspires different thoughts in each of us. And so some people ask questions that I hadn't even thought to ask and I might ask questions that others hadn't thought of. It's kind of like tasting whisky in that manner since we are all informed as much by our own experiences as by the info that was presented to us.
After about a half hour or so our hostess, Johanne McInnis of the blog: The Perfect Whisky Match called those of us lucky enough to have been included in the samples down to the business of discovering what the little bottle I've shown above held.
Mystery Whisky 2
Color: I don't often comment on color, but this one was really pretty. A bit more red in it than the various Amber tones I'm used to.
Nose: At first all I got was sweetness and rubber. Almost like a Sharpie marker, but not quite. After a little longer I discovered a bit of a sulfur smell in there. And then after those settled down a bit there was a bit of maple. We had a discussion online as to if it were a vanilla or a maple, but to me it went more maple-ish.
If you're a bourbon person like me, these scents are going to sound really odd. But as strange as they sound, they do not come across as unpleasant, just different. It was a very interesting nose.
Mouth: This one starts very sweet. But then it takes a left turn into a definite sourness followed by molasses. It was odd. Had an off flavor that I didn't find pleasant.
Finish: Bitter tannins and spice fading into lingering molasses.
Overall: This is not a bad whiskey. I don't think something went wrong or it was not well done. It isn't terrible. But it isn't to my tastes. For me, it's just meh.
So what is it? This week we tasted Alberta Premium Dark Horse. This is a very different whisky than last week. I'm noticing that there are many facets to Canadian whisky. I find that very exciting and can't wait for next week.
If you missed Sunday's tasting, search for the the twitter hashtag #DavinTT to get caught up. And please make sure you follow along each Sunday at 2 pm Central time between now and May 26th using that same hashtag to live vicariously though us as we expand our knowledge and palates.