Yet another ancient whiskey from MvZ. I tried this one a little while ago but with the massive backlog of tasting notes (at least a hundred…) I’m just randomly picking what to review at this point.

Paddy is a brand of whiskey from an Irish Distillery that got centralized in the Midleton plant in 1975. Before that it was made at the Cork Distilleries Company, which went defunct in 1966. This means that the distillate is at least 54 years old, and likely a little bit older than that.

The Cork Distilleries Company was already in County Cork, so the move wasn’t a big one, geographically. However, when the new distillery got up and running, practically everything changed in Irish Whiskey and we got to the whiskey we all know from about a decade ago. Luckily, since then there’s more variety and more distilleries popping up.

Anyway, Paddy 10 year old.

Image from The Whisky Exchange

Sniff:
Lots of oak, some chocolate notes. Slightly fruity with oranges and lime. Quite sweet after a while.

Sip:
Gentle, dry and dusty. Fruity with a lot of citrus. A whiff of chemical fruit flavors, some nutmeg and clove.

Swallow:
The finish is warming and largely similar to the palate. Warming with some spices and fruit.

In a way, this is a pretty nice whiskey. It doesn’t come close to matching the current price and the quality (it was available semi-recently for £ 600 at The Whisky Exchange), but then you’re paying for scarcity, mostly.

The biggest point with this whiskey is that it is very inconsistent. The nose, palate and finish could all belong to different whiskeys, with the only thing that overlaps is the citrus between the nose and palate, and the spices between the palate and the finish.

It makes for a very strange drinking experience, which is very strange for a product that was focused on consistency, as were most whiskeys from that era. Having said that, it’s never bad, it doesn’t have any obvious flaws and it’s very interesting to drink something this old.

82/100

Paddy 10 year old, Cork Distilleries Company, 40%