Nose: Mushroom and earth. Some slightly sweet notes of strawberry milk Palate: Leather, taste some more berry sugar sweetness, pineapple, obvious mushroom influence, incredibly manly rustic flavours as the sweetness fades into paper bag, dank autumn morning hiking, pizza crust Finish: Mushroom goes away, leaving only the sweeter and earthy notes Feel like this one is to mix for adding meatier kicks into a cocktail, but as for sipping neat, will have to grow on me some more. This was written on a second tasting. The first tasting was too shocking for me to write any words, haha. The mushroom is very dominant and difficult to brush aside for how peculiar it felt in a whisky. Would not recommend adding too much water, made it taste like a watery canned mushroom soup. Appreciate the uniqueness of the idea though.
About this bottle
The first release in BEARFACE's Wilderness Series puts the spotlight on wild matsutake mushrooms. The whisky is a blend of three parcels of Canadian whiskies aged in different casks including French oak (red wine & virgin oak), sherry pipes (PX, cream, and amontillado), and casked Matsutake. The Matsutake cask was made by adding wild foraged matsutake mushrooms to a cask filled with BEARFACE whisky where it was allowed to infuse for 2 months. All casks were "elementally aged" in repurposed shipping containers where they're exposed to the elements. The US gets its allotment in December 2023. (SRP $44.99)
How it tastes
Measured across 14 flavor axes. Tap a note to find other bottles that lead with it.
Reviews
Showing the most detailed of 3 parsed reviews.
This is unique. Earthy, sweet, oaky evan bready. It is incredibly hard to explain this whisky. However, I appreciate that it is not just another sweet, buttery Canadian. It has sweetness, but also dusty oaky notes with some clear mushroom notes. If you love mushrooms on your pizza, try this out. So cool.
This is a weird one. Canadian forest air after a heavy rain: trees, pine needles, tree sap, fresh mushrooms with some damp dirt. Also, sultanas, very tannic Bordeaux wine, vanilla cake with icing sugar, corn syrup, fennel, and some Orange Crush soda.
Tastes like this
Closest flavor profiles across the whole catalog.