Sooooo. Pomegranate wine…

Until SJ gave me the rest of his sample of this, I didn’t even know that was a thing. Of course that also made me unaware of it’s casks being used to finish whisky spirit in.

Of course, this partially has to do with the fact that I don’t have The Milk & Honey Distillery on my radar at all. Somehow the distillery from Tel Aviv is not something I care about.

I think that’s in general because I don’t really care about where a distillery is. As in, I don’t think something is interesting because it is in an unusual city or country. Things like ‘the first distillery in <enter country name here>’ is just not something that grabs me.

So, when this sample came around I tasted it with some apprehension. New distillery, incredibly young spirit, ridiculous cask…

Sniff:
Initially there’s the typical ‘wine’ scent to this spirit, but very quickly after there is a scent of moldy fruit. It’s hard to get around that mold, but I do think I get some of the pomegranate seed scent.

Sip:
The palate is pretty hot, with quite a lot of upfront alcohol. The funkiness is still present, but pushed back by a lot of fruitiness. The heat is rather prohibitive, and turns to a very dry palate. There’s some oak, and fruit, but mostly alcohol burn.

Swallow:
The finish goes towards the flavors you sometimes get from a port cask, with musty fruit and dark oak. However, there is that moldy flavor that I also got on the nose.

Honestly, I think this is shit. I guess there’s a good reason I had never heard of pomegranate wine, and why the casks are never used in the whisky industry.

I’m not sure where to begin but let’s keep it at “Don’t drink this”. The moldiness is not the Springbank-kind-of-good-funk. The heat doesn’t make this enjoyable either.

25/100

I don’t really know how to score this. Generally, under 80 is getting sketchy, which makes anything under 60 obsolete. However, 60 feels too high for this.