To continue with the Saint Patrick’s Day celebration I decided to try my part of the bottle-share of this Writer’s Tears release.

I don’t have too much experience with the brand, but I do remember having a previous cask strength version at a whisky tasting in Den Bosch, at De Whiskykoning, and liking that. So, with a Mizunara cask finish on top of me already liking that, and this whisky being discounted by 25% at WhiskySite, I thought it was a good idea to try and share it. That worked, and for once I was sort of timely in trying it.

In fact, I finished my 10cl in the same night.

Writer’s Tears is one of the two brands of Irish whisky from ‘Walsh Whiskey’. I had to look it up since I automatically assume it was from Midleton, since virtually all brands that are over five years old, and not called Bushmills, Cooley or Connemara are from that distillery / producer. It’s not, as it turns out.

Mizunara is the Japanese name for Japanese Oak. It’s quite rare to see in cask form, although not unheard of. The reason there’s not too many of these casks out there is because it’s not an easy try to make casks out of. In comparison, American oak and Japanese oak:

As you can imagine, the left one has far more straight bits compared to the other, so a lot more planks can be made of a single tree.

Anyway, typical me-rambling to start about different types of oak, especially Japanese oak, in a post on Irish whisky. Let’s do some tasting notes!

Sniff:
Lots of oak, with a hint of incense. Apart from that there’s some wine gum sweetness. Tropical fruit with some boiled candy. A crisp note, with herbs, basil, thyme. Some sawdust, dried apple.

Sip:
The palate has the typical Irish sweetness, but that is counteracted with dry woodiness, sawdust, white pepper, incense, dried apple and pear skins.

Swallow:
The finish isn’t overly interesting. It continues down the same line. However, since the palate is pretty good, the finish is too.

I am quite surprised to find this at not even 84 points on Whiskybase, since I think this deserves more. Compared to normal Writer’s Tears I think the Mizunara cask finish really adds a level of woodiness that is not very common to an already not-bad whisky. It makes it a lot more interesting in my book.

Recommended at € 60!

87/100