Goodradigbee Tasmanian Blackwood

Nose: Alcohol with pine woody notes. Slight resin, vegetal and berry aromas but it’s very shy and lacking. Palate: The arrival is sweetish alcohol with hints of caramel and cocoa, but very mild. There is no real development apart from a resinous tree-sap flavour that appeared after a moment, only to be quickly replaced by tannic bitterness. Finish: Short. The tannins fade into faintly sweet neutral alcohol. I had not heard about this until yesterday when I saw it at a pop-up stall at our local liquor shop. It was the fourth and last Goodradigbee malt spirit I tasted and of the four it had the most similarity to actual whisky, but I thought it was still inferior to the Jarrah product (which was the first I tasted). This had more to offer, but overall it was not as pleasing. Like everything they make in this range it has a raw alcohol character and is obviously very young, thin and characterless with no sign of the complexity or integration you get from proper maturation. Goodradigbee Distillers are not using oak casks to age their spirit for the required 2 years so it can be called whisky. Instead they are using Australian hardwood boxes and maturing for just a few months. They claim this “innovative” system provides more surface area for maturation. However putting spirit into a small box to age for a few months clearly achieves very little so I think it’s more likely that they are just avoiding the expense of buying oak casks and the cost of cooperage. This isn’t a fast maturation system like pressure-treatment with oak blocks or chips which can achieve some semblance of maturation (if you’re lucky). It’s just another failed experiment. This retails for AUD$90 which puts it in direct competition with some excellent true whiskies so NOT recommending it is a no-brainer. “Poor” : 64/100 (1.25 stars)