My local bottle-shop found a bunch of these in the store room and I picked one up. There’s no more story to it than this.

Luckily, this one is from the period after TBWC cleaned up their bottling line so it doesn’t taste like the absinthe they produced back in the day anymore. That was a bit of a miss with all kinds of awesome drams being wasted because of a fennel/aniseed flavor being added during bottling.

Let’s just dive right in! It’s not often that we find ourselves tasting Dutch whisky for some reason. The reason is fairly simple: Most of it isn’t very good, but there are more and more distilleries getting the hang of producing really good single malt nowadays! Just to calm everyone’s nerves if they’re afraid of more ‘Frysk Hynder’ atrocities.

Sniff:
Strangely, it reminds me a lot of rye whisky, and not as much of single malt. Lots of spices with a remarkable amount of dark chocolate. There’s hay, some pepper, orange rind.

Sip:
The palate is quite nippy, with a but of chili heat. Dark chocolate and dark grains. A bit of a stout like bitterness, with oak and rough tree bark. Pine cones and resin too.

Swallow:
The finish is a lot more dry, and leaves the chocolate in favor of more barley husks, straw, oak shavings and bitter citrus.

The fact that it reminds me of rye whisky explains why this doesn’t score too well on Whiskybase. American style whiskies tend to not do too well there. However, I am quite particular to the style, and this one is no exception. The fact that it’s a bit more mellow than the full on spiciness that rye sometimes has adds to my joy in drinking this. Let’s just say my sample went really fast, but I ordered another one.

87/100

Available for € 50 at Drinks & Gifts