Let’s try again.

Normally, as ‘loyal readers’ might know, I find Irish single malt with an age like this hit-and-miss at best. Generally they’ve got a massive dollop of chemical sweetness not unlike the plastic bag supermarket wine gums come in. In short, I don’t like that. There are some exceptions which don’t show that flavor. There are some exceptions who do show it, but in a way that it’s transformed from an overpowering sense of artificial sweetness to a layer in a lot of other layers.

Now, this one then. The Perfect Dram is a bit of a presumptuous name, but generally they don’t bottle shit. A decent age, and a bourbon barrel. It *should* be good, right?

Image from Whiskybase

Sniff:
A fruit bomb, with lovely pineapple, pear, sweet apple. Wine gums too, it is an Irish Single Malt after all. Star fruit, brioche, and somehow no wood.

Sip:
Quite intense, with lots of fruit, albeit less sweet than on the nose. Still lots of wine gums, apples, pears, (galia) melon too. The dryness is more woody here.

Swallow:
The finish is slightly different again, with more fruit, a bit more chemical/artificial now. Quite long with some tropical fruitiness lingering.

So, as it turns out, this is one of those whiskeys that knows how to integrate the wine gum sweetness into the rest of it and make it better because of it. A cracking whiskey at, unfortunately, a bit of an outrageous price. Not unexpected though.

I do like that the sweetness shows in multiple ways, with the brioche bread, pineapple, melon and other fruits. Interestingly, the woodiness of 24 years of aging shows only on the palate and finish. All in all, a great whiskey!

90/100

Irish Single Malt Whiskey, 24yo, 1991-2016, Bourbon barrel, 49.5%, The Perfect Dram by The Whisky Agency