Monday, March 12, 2007

Review!



Those that know me know that I enjoy a good glass of whiskey. So, upon seeing this bottle, I knew I had to get it, An American Single Malt! Fantastic, right?
First off, let's discuss color. It's actually quite nice, a light greenish gold. Color has a fairly large effect on whiskeys that i buy, and this one passed the test.
Unfourtunatly, it goes downhill from there. I suspect this is mostly due to their "secret" ageing process. Typically, a decent whiskey is aged around 8-10 years, the older it gets, the better, up untill around 30 years or so, when it begins to taste moslty of wood. This "chip and barrell process" used by Copper Fox is , I suspect, is something akin to what many american beer and whiskey makers do to save time. The liquid is forced through wood chips at high speeds. The point of which is to force the liquid to pick up as much of the charicteristics of the wood as possible, withough having to age it for years. A good idea, if it actually worked. The problem is,whiskey is aged in wood because wood is porous. Extended ageing allows the harsher parts of the alcohol to evaporate through the wood. Outside air also works it's way in, imparting the area's "flavor" into the whisky, along with the flavor of wood. This "flash" aging (the bottle states this whisky is a whopping 4 moths old), imparts the wood flavor, but doesn't remove the harsher flavors of alcohol. That being said, let's move on.
The nosing processs (smelling it basically), can be one of the best parts of a good whiskey. This one, however, fails miserably. Imagine if you mixed some imitation vanilla extract with rubbing alcohol. That's what it smells like. No sublties, no layered scents, just crap.
If you somehow manage to get past the scent and get the whisky in your mouth, you are instantly punished for your good efforts. Remember drinking Aristocrat Vodka from a plastic handle back in high school? Remember how as soon as it got in your mouth, it set your tastebuds on fire, so you soon learned to just drink it fast to avoid having it touch the inside of your mouth? That's what the "body" of this makes me think of. Adding a bit of water to cut the alcohol burn is a waste of time however, because the actual flavor is god awful. Because it isn't really aged, the whisky is increadibly harsh. There are applewood notes, but the flash ageing makes it seem artificial and much sweeter than it should be.
The finish is almost tolerable at first, but unfourutatly, the cherry flavored toffee taste never seems to go away.
On a final note, while it may be a bit nit-picky, they have no right to call this whisky instead of whiskey. Only Scotland and, according to some, Canada can do that. It's not a "law" really, but it's just understood.
So, to the good people at Copper Fox, I have one question: "What the fuck?" Did you actually taste this and think, "Hell yeah! this is good as hell, let's sell it!" Have you had Scotch, or any other whiskey before? Jack Daniels even? Again, those that know me, know that I don't like to waste the alcohol. Especially whiskey. But it looks like this bottle is bound for the drain. I just can't do it.

8 comments:

sensibletron said...

This was enjoyable and informative. You should buy more scotch so that you can write more of these.

ARB said...

yep. but you could spell review right. only if you want to. i respect choices made in the name of art. or should that be ART? blah blah blah.

Anonymous said...

Stop complaining and drink it. It doesn't matter if it tastes awful. On Long Island such a statement would brand you as a clueless outsider. On another note, spelling was never held in very high esteem by the artists and writers of L.I. Drinking, that's another matter.

Dave Smooth said...

yeah, well. it was totally spelled right the whole time. so there.

mike c said...

bring it over to Demon House and we'll fix it up w/ some ice and lemon juice!

Anonymous said...

damn dave, this was like reading a really emotional novel with a brutal ending. except that it was a whiskey review instead.

s.eth said...

last year my dad got a bottle of 30 yr old laphroaig for xmas. he was so kind to share some with me. the smell alone got me drunk. it was so smooth, smoother than you dave smooth. best booze i have ever had - i dream about that stuff.

Dave Smooth said...

I've recently learned that the chip and barrell aging process actually involves large mesh bags filled with toasted oak disks floating in the whisky vats for a few days. So, my details were a bit off, but the point remains the same. Saving time in the aging process imparts only the negative charicteristics of an ages whisky, without the benifit.