Woodford Reserve – Distillers Select

Sometimes, just sometimes, people surprise you with how well they know you and the thought they put into gifts. One such time happened in the now long past (Its been a whole week back at work) festive season. My lovely brother in law put together a blind tasting session, that ended in me receiving a bottle of my favoured dram from the selection of three. I had been talking for weeks about getting hold of some bourbons to try and lo and behold, then whisky I chose was a bourbon, this bourbon to be precise.

Tonight finds me babysitting, so this seems like a perfect time to revisit the dram and to review it. I am drinking the dram, whilst watching the FA Cup and its from a solid, straight glass. As I got the Whisky bible for christmas, I have even started the tasting by eating a small amount of dark chocolate.

Nose: Straight away, this is an interesting nose. As my experience of whisky is mainly malted barley based drams this takes me to a new place. Its oddly like furniture polish, full of oak, but sweet like brown sugar. There is also a floral note.

Taste: Initially this whiskey is sweet, but fruity, it opens quickly to a flavour that reminds me of rum and pulls me on to a beach somewhere warm. Dragging me from a cold Bristolian evening and plonking me on to a beach can’t ever be a bad thing, but this middle flavour is also a pretty harsh flavour. This can no way be described as a subtle dram. This middle flavour is drying and spicy. It warms the mouth and troubles the tongue. The final flavour is numbing and creamy, like a vanilla yoghurt packed into a sauna.

I should end my review there, but I feel that this whisky opens up a huge need to drink more bourbon. To review anything fully, you need to drink poor, middling and excellent examples of that type. I imagine that there are better
bourbons, but I imagine that there are many worse.

Mouthfeel: Never boring, sweet, drying and spicy.

Overall: 
Aroma – 14
Start – 12
Middle – 12
Finish – 13
Value – 14

Overall – 65/100

More Info: Woodford Reserve

Available: Masters of Malt