It certainly smells smokey and woody. It's surprising laid back though. There is plenty of smoke, but not a ton of peat. Spice is present but not terribly harsh. There is a lot of toffee sweetness and plenty of sweet cherry and vanilla. Floral notes are there, but they aren't overly mineral. Toward the finish, it gives way to leather. The delicious flavors are mouth-watering. It's surprising how balanced and sweet this is. The minerals are there, but they're appropriately balanced by the spice somehow. There's some cocoa richness mixed with the smoke in the back. Ultimately, the flavor is weak and the complexity is a bit lacking, but this is darned good whiskey. I love the richness. This is a great hedonistic sipper that doesn't challenge you to like it too much. It could be better with more robustness and complexity, but it's great as is. More complexity could make it excellent, but as it is, it isn't interesting enough to carry it beyond a couple of pours. Some more robustness could bump it up a point, but some added complexity could easily bump it up two. I love how well Corsair executes its flavor and although none of these flavors make me catch my breath, the worst one is good and the best is roughly great. Balancing the strong spice with some richer other flavors would take this whiskey far. This is terrific value for an American Single Malt.
About this bottle
Whiskey is essentially made from three things - water, yeast and barley. Corsair, known for their punk attitude towards distilling, took this basic recipe for whiskey and shook things up by splitting the barley used in the whiskey into three parts and smoking each with a different fuel - cherry wood, peat, and beechwood. This bottling is a limited release and comes straight from a single barrel. ABV may vary for each bottle.
Reviews
Showing the most detailed of 9 parsed reviews.
Having had the original non-cask strength, and this is a much more refined, balanced dram. Nose is cherrywood-smoked bacon, brown sugar, ground cinnamon, orange candy, and lots of smoke. The whiskey is a smoked with three parts cherrywood, beachwood, and peat, and the palate shifts between each of the three in that order, finally setting on a non-medicinal peat note with a mesquite barbecue at the end. In spite of the peat, it drinks more like a German rauchbier instead of an Islay scotch (it's actually out of a craft distillery with locations in Bowling Green and Nashville). Certainly an improvement over the original (which I still liked) which I thought had a bit of chalkiness to it I found distracted enough to keep it from being what it was meant to be. This has no such defects.
taste like a lightly smoked bourbon. Very sweet with light woodsmoke on the finish, water brings out oak and cherry candy.
That’s a campfire in your mouth with a ton of Carmel and cherry! DELICIOUS
Nice smoke with a hint of peat & pepper. Works well with a cigar
Würzig, leichter Rauch, Abgang: ist sofort verschwunden
3 more reviews were collected for this bottle. The longest ones are shown first.
Tastes like this
Same style and price bracket, best rated first.