This month’s sample is one of our very recent Celtic Cask releases, Celtic Cask Ocht (8). Our tweet tasting took place on January 7th following the hashtag #celticcask8.
In many ways this can be considered a big sister to or previous release Sé (6). It is a unique 23 Year Old single malt which was double distilled in Ireland. It was first casked into a refill sherry cask on the 16th of September 1991. In April 2013 it was then emptied into a red wine cask from Anima Negra, a Spanish winery on the island of Mallorca.Anima Negra is made from the local Callet grape variety. Casks are made from French Allier oak and have a capacity of 225ltr. The red wine spent 20 months in the barrel.
We have had numerous whiskeys matured in these types of barrels and so far they have all been outstanding, paying tribute to the exceptional quality of the wood.Taking this experience into consideration, we were careful not to over do the wine cask maturation. Hence just 18 months in the Anima Negra Cask.
On October 1st 2014, this whiskey was bottled at 46%. In total just 334 bottles were made. This is a non chill-filtered whiskey. It retails at €225.
The whiskey has a beautiful deep reddish bronze. This is purely as a result of the casks themselves, it has not been coloured in any way.
Here is what some of our members and staff had to say about the colour during the tweet-tasting:
Our resident taster Al lead the way in the tweet tasting, tweeting from the @CelticWhiskeyCl account. He detected some very complex and lovely aromas of wet tarmac, milk chocolate, mace, cola, cloves, orange peel and even a little engine oil upon a second sniff. There seemed to be a general consensus about these aromas, with a few additional scents.
This whiskey has a thick viscous palate, with sweet flavours of chocolate, mixed citrus peel, cola, mace, cloves, red apple. Becoming more spicy on the finish. It is obvious that this whiskey is a favourite amongst us in the store!
Members detected some other interesting flavours:
Final Thoughts??
A big 'Thanks' again to everyone who took part! We would love to hear from more of our members too and particularly like to stress that there are no right or wrong answers during these tastings. The aim is to taste whiskeys in a fun and enjoyable manner, regardless of level of whiskey knowledge or experience. All contributions welcome, big or small!
We hope you all enjoyed Celtic Cask Ocht as much as we did! Until next time...
Sláinte!