So, no further info in the title, because it would have gotten too long:

• 18 bottles in total
• 30.6% ex-Rum cask
• 45.6% Peated STR cask
• 11.3% ex-Bourbon cask
• 12.5% other casks

Also, the vintages are either 2018 (the rum and bourbon casks) and 2019 (the STR casks), so it is technically 3 years old. And, in case you aren’t familiar with Milk & Honey Distillery: It is a distillery from Tel Aviv, Israel. So being three years old isn’t as ‘young’ as it would have been in Scotland.

Maltstock is nearly upon ‘us’. Not me, since the postponing of last year’s Dutch Whisky Festival made me already have a whisky festival in September, and with other things my calendar was pretty clogged anyway. Fingers crossed for next year.

The dates of Maltstock got pushed back a little bit, to the end of the month instead of the second weekend in September. The venue that has been the venue for years decided, correctly, that housing Ukranian refugees is more important than having 200 whisky nerds over that get way too hammered.

But, there is at least a festival bottling, and Teun was kind enough to give me a sample when I met him last Friday!

Sniff:
It’s very spicy, with lots of roasty notes. Some black pepper, very dark toast. There’s some caramel sweetness and bitterness behind the roasty notes. There’s a paprika and marinade note going on too, barbecue style.

Sip:
The palate is surprisingly fruity, and rather sharp. It has a massive peppery bite, which isn’t too surprising with 60% ABV. There are berries, and some plums. There’s that ‘wet rub’ style of sweetness too, paprika, molasses, ketchup. Very interesting, and very unique.

Swallow:
The finish shows the youth of the whisky a bit more than the palate did. It’s a bit short, with less pronounced flavors. The mix of casks makes for many flavors, but not many outspoken ones.

A pretty solid dram, which I honestly didn’t really expect. Not entirely sure why.

The combination of casks is interesting, but does make things a little bit all over the place towards the end. The marinade like notes are very interesting. I can imagine this working rather well at the Maltstock barbecue 😉

86/100

Bonus review:

Milk & Honey new make spirit, 50%

I got a sizeable sample of this when I met some of the guys from Milk & Honey and a few of their friends at Maltstock a couple of years ago. I wrote tasting notes ages ago too, but was waiting for a better moment to post the review. You know, when you can also compare it to a matured whisky instead of just a random spirit.

Sniff:
Insanely feinty with lots of oil fumes and engine smells. Shoe polish and somehow, the stuff that the dentist uses for fillings. Way too heavy, in a way that reminds me of all kinds of other ‘try hard’ spirits. It gets a bit more fruity after a while, with canned pineapple, but the gasoline and engine oil scent stays on top.

Sip:
The palate is dry and on point in sharpness. The engine oil and petroleum doesn’t translate too much to the palate, luckily. There’s more fruit, with mango and pineapple, and granny smith apples too.

Swallow:
The petroleum stuff carries on in the finish. I’m not sure if that is it, but it is just a bit too much for me.

Interestingly, the spirit was, to be honest, pretty shit. I am not trying to say the quality was bad, because as we’ve come to know with the matured whiskies, it turns out quite well. However, it obviously isn’t meant as a drink on its own.

But, with some extra years of experience and the massive amount of new whiskies that have flooded the market, I think it generally makes for more interesting older whiskies, if the spirit itself isn’t too smooth. So, again, interesting, but if it was a product for sale, I wouldn’t pick one up and go for the matured version instead.