MrWizard's Ramblings

Here we go again!

What — Notes — Score

Catador Itinerante EU Malts:

Four European (not scotch) Malts… that are a little different. Slyrs is from Germany and Broger is from Austria. Consider the grades to be separate from the typical scotch grading.

Catador Itinerante Slyrs 9 Years Pineau des Charentes Finish, 55.9% — Red fruits on the nose. Cherry pie? Ooooh… spiced cherry pie, in a good way. Clean and consistent experience of malt in a wine cask. No water needed. — Score: B
Catador Itinerante Slyrs 7 Years Sauternes Finish, 55.4% — Fruity-sweet nose, baked apples, toasted honey. Chili pepper and simple syrup. Secondary flavors and aftertaste complexity fall somewhat short. Water makes it more consistent front-to-back, but weakens the flavors — Score: B-
Catador Itinerante Broger 10 Years Smoked Oloroso Sherry, 71.6% — Smoked coffee notes on the nose. Multilayered palate with old oak and good oloroso cask influence. Drinks under its proof. Darkly herbal and medicinal, balanced by proof and sweetness. Not-quite-tannic, yet deeply toasted and oaky, somewhat smoky aftertaste. — Score: B
Catador Itinerante Broger 13 Years French Oak Madeira Finish, 62.1% — Coffee liqueur nose! Dark chocolate liquor palate. Dark and sweet espresso with date syrup concentrate. Sticks around forever on the aftertaste. After-dinner dessert, herbal and somewhat drying — Score: B+

Rums:

Guyana 13 (Diamond), Hamilton SP, Port Mourant PMP, 55.7% — Somewhat funky vanilla, minty, tropical, heavy on flavor, light on cask char. Basically vanilla, chili spices, light mintiness throughout. Falls somewhere in-between on the funky-to-tropical scale of Guyanese rums — Score: B+
Jamaica Hampden Pagos, 52% — Somewhat funky, yet balanced vanilla, lots of sherry cask influence. Surprisingly balanced sweetness with toasted notes and cask spices. Very enjoyable for those that like this sort of funky, wood varnish, sweet and slightly bitter profile — Score: A-
1992 Cuba 31, Wu Dram Clan SP, 50.7% — A bit of a treat for myself. It’s *dark*. It’s very vanilla forward. It’s sweet. It’s almost like a creme puff in my mouth or spiced vanilla custard. It’s somewhat straightforward, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s good stuff for vanilla sugar rum enthusiasts. Also Cuba, so I shared some with my dad who loved it — Score: A-
Mount Gay 1703. 6 years old. Madeira Cask. 55% — Wood, alcohol heat, some madeira influence. Did i mention lots of heat here? Sweetness of rum mixes well with cask spice and wood notes and gives it an illusion that it’s older than it is. Oddly, reminds me of Foursquare ex-bourbon bottlings. Plenty of flavor but not a lot of depth here, relying on cask to make up for age — Score: B+
Privateer Convergence #132, 7 years. Queen’s Share Yankee, Ex-bourbon Cask, 59.6% — Heck of a name to type out and that’s not even all the info from the label. The nose is young and booze-forward, opening into honey and some grassy sugars with time. It’s basically hot vanilla sugar. More sugar, some grain and vanilla on the palate. Dusting of clove in the aftertaste notes. Kinda reminds me of single grain scotch. It’s probably better used as a mixer — Score: C-
Privateer Echelon #130, 7 years. Queen’s Share Yankee, American Oak, 62.7% — Close markee but notably better than it’s counterpart above. Now actually balanced on flavors. The cask offsets alcohol nicely bringing restrained wood to the hot vanilla sugar, thus balancing it. Still somewhat light and sweet overall, this is much better package overall. Still somewhat single grain scotch-y… but much better version this time — Score: B
Privateer Fulcrum #131, 7 years, New England, New Oak, 59.4% — Now we’re talking! Toasted vanilla wood. Nice balance between spirit and cask influence. Peppermint, caramel, vanilla pancake. A little young and lively but nearing the sweet spot — Score: B+
2000 Chairman’s Reserve 21, St Lucia. Fred Minnick/Seebach’s, 63% — John Dore 1 Still. Glorious wood bomb! Eucalyptus oil, vanilla, not super thick or overpowering. This is fantastic. Not overly funky or medicine-forward, while still retaining a very strong character of that herbal apothecary shop full of dried herbs and essential oils. Easy score here — Score: A-
1998 Chairman’s Reserve 21, St Lucia. Fred Minnick/Seebach’s, 67.7% — John Dore 1 Still. Somehow darker and more concentrated than the above, but it drinks softer. Holy cow, this is good one indeed. Repeat all the notes from above, but make it better balanced by sweet vanilla and toasted oak. — Score: A

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Scoring Breakdown: https://www.aerin.or … age=scores_breakdown

Bourbon samples? Bourbon samples!

Baker’s 13, bottled in 2020, 53.5%
Obviously, this is Beam. The series is bottled from a slew of different casks, all bottled at 107 proof. So Beam, 2020, 13 years old, single cask, no idea what cask this came out of from. The nose is very classical oaky beam, sour cherries, some sorts of fruits in general, dash of musty summer shed. Lots of cinnamon and toasted barrel spices, vanilla, more fruits from the nose, something sweet and toasted too, surprisingly intense wood for the proof. Aftertaste is sort of a gentle fall with more of the same from the palate that lingers for a bit, slightly drying. Overall: Enjoyable on it’s own and somewhat reminding me of a softer KC2001… Value: About $100 was the msrp at the time… maybe okay for the pretty bottle and shelf presence? But still mostly overpriced as majority of ‘premium’ bourbons.
Score: B+

Found North 17 year old, Batch 006, 64.1%
This is most likely mostly a bourbon with 87% corn, 12% rye, 1% barley. This is in fact blended canadian whiskey so good chance it didn’t meet bourbon definition due to casks. Batch 6, lets go! Strong vanilla notes on the nose, lively with fresh oak-forward notes. Lots of hungarian oak on the palate which is yet again surprisingly spicy for such a low rye content. Aftertaste is slightly disappointing and fades way quicker than i’d prefer into somewhat of a malty sweetness, yet again surprising, due to very low malt contents. Water does good here to soften the impact. With about 20 minutes of resting in a glass, if you got the time, the rye bite softens into something much more integrated, and mouth-coating, and very delicious, and it gets better the longer it sits in the glass. Overall: Blindly, without rest, I’d say it was a rye. It sure drinks like a rye. A very very good rye. With rest… it’s sweet and spicy and quite possibly amazing. Value: Seen that its smrp was around $125… I’ll not going to say it’s too expensive for the quality, but it’s not cheap either.
Score: B+ (A- with long rest in glass)

Found North 18 Canadian Rye, Second Summit, 64.9%
Looks like this is specifically a second release of batch 006 Found North rye, this one finished in PX casks. I do wonder what motivated that decision. Either way, thanks friend Christian L for this sample! The nose is sweet pine candy dusted with peppermint. The palate is more sweet pine candy, dusted with mint, some sort of berry reduction, french toast drowning in syrup. Medium-long aftertaste brings in more peppermint, cinnamon, hot chili, baking spices and some oak. Surprisingly mount-watering instead of drying. Overall: Some sort of spicy, outdoorsy, minty cake with berry jam all over it. Rather too sweet for me to be honest… think spicy and very sweet midwinter’s night dram as a rough approximation. Value: Priced at 140-160 at the time… it’s a pass for me personally, be sure to try it at a bar!
Score: B+

Maker’s Mark Lost Recipe 24-01 (Mocha), 55.95%
This is arguably ‘exclusive’ costco recipe of the Maker’s stave profile of 13060 formula, notably with roasted french mocha staves vs newer ones. The nose is very pleasant and falls somewhere between perfume and sweet cologne. The palate starts flowery, fruity and warm at the beginning and then descends into fiery barrel spice… Thankfully it doesn’t get too overwhelming on the spices. Sweet and somewhat drying oak follows in the medium-long aftertaste. Overall: This doesn’t quite evoke mocha for me… but it is a VERY enjoyable pour from Maker’s which is a lot. There’s almost none of their bottles I’ve truly enjoyed. Of the recent bottlings this falls somewhere between hearts and cellar-aged on the ‘i like this’ ratings for me, so take that as you will. Value: Priced at 59 in costco this is a very solid deal. The cask strength is cheaper but is basically a mixer and cellar aged is not even remotely in the price range i would consider paying.
Score: B

A bunch of Old Carters thanks for my friend Vadim!

Old Carter Bourbon, Batch 4, 58.4%
The nose is somewhat restrained for the proof and it takes an effort to tease anything out of it initially. On the other side, there are some pretty epic legs on the glass as I swish it around, getting me excited. Candied corn, butterscotch candy, oak, spices, not too rye-forward, well-balanced palate. Aftertaste is somewhat uninspiring but the baking spices linger in the back of the palate for a while, lightly bitter and oaky. Overall: A very drinkable bourbon that’s well balanced and well blended, this offers something for everyone, and works really hard to not be offensive to anyone. The downside being that it also doesn’t stand out in a meaningful way beyond being a ‘good bourbon’. In short, “I am enjoying it today”, and that statement can be said about most good bourbon bottles. I’ll re-iterate that this is an absolute monster in the balance department; so the blender did an amazing job here. Value: Oh, hell no… Originally priced at $200+. No.
Score: B+

Old Carter American Whiskey, Batch 3, 69.05%
I’ve reviewed this before… But let’s revisit even if briefly. High proof nose, with oak and mint. Sweet, well balanced palate with plenty of spices, butterscotch, toasted oak, vanilla (and yet again some mint). This leans towards lighter medium of the bourbon palate with nutmeg and cinnamon instead of cherry and deep oak. Think of Barton and not Buffalo Trace. Medium-length aftertaste that mostly follows what was on the palate. Water easily throws the palate out of balance, so be cautious about adding a ‘random’ amount. Overall: This is an excellent bottle of booze. Perhaps not for everyone, but it’s up my alley. As seems to be the norm with Caters… Excellent blending! Value: It’s Old Carter… There is are bargains to be found here.
Score: A-
vs
Old Carter American Whiskey, Batch 4, 69.8%
A follow up review on the one above… I’m going to save myself some time instead of repeating everything above I’ll summarize. This is very similar to the one above… with two notable differences. One: instead of mint note, there’s a dried apricot note in the mix somewhere. Secondly, it’s spicier and a touch rougher around the edges, with alcohol being much more prominent. Some water snaps the balance back, surprisingly. Overall: While the composition is unknown, this drinks like a high-rye whiskey that’s somewhat unbalanced right out of the bottle. Few drops of water are recommended. Value: It’s Old Carter… There are no bargains to be found here.
Score: B (A- /w water)

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Scoring Breakdown: https://www.aerin.or … age=scores_breakdown