Irish Whiskey Tasting (March 17th, 2022)
This was our 1st Irish Whiskey Tasting. I used Distiller.com to pick the different bottles, looking at the ones rating in the high 80s and/or 90s. Dennis our Irish connection, also suggested a few lesser known ones, that are very popular in Ireland. The bottles in question are ;
| TT Label | Description | Proof | Rating | Price (CAD$) |
| B | Clonakilty | 87 | 5.5 | $65.00 |
| D | Kilbeggan Small Batch Rye | 86 | 6.4 | $57.00 |
| E | RedBreast 12 yr | 80 | 7.5 | $84.00 |
| A | Paddy’s | 80 | 7.1 | $32.50 |
| C | Bushmill 10 yr | 80 | 7.3 | $52.00 |
| G | Green Spot | 80 | 6.5 | $80.00 |
| F | Yellow Spot | 92 | 6.2 | $120.00 |
| H | Five Farms Irish Cream | 34 | 9.3 | $40.00 |
We did this tasting on St. Patrick’s Day, since it’s Irish Whiskey, perhaps we should make it a tradition!
We had 15 people take part in the Zoom, and I poured 22 racks. About 1/3 didn’t take part in the Zoom, I often will still get the ratings from those who do it separately, but I don’t count them in the average for the website. I find if people do it themselves, it’s not in a controlled setting. Some would argue with the Zoom, there can be a voting biased as well, since people ‘show’ their vote. I can do electronic voting on the Zoom, maybe we’ll look into that next time, and maybe ‘reveal’ the votes, after everyone has voted on the bottle being sampled.
So it seems ‘price’ does not determine a good Irish Whiskey, at least not based on our ratings. I was happy, I finally predicted the winner, I haven’t done so well on predicting it, in the last few tastings. I try to determine the winner, when sampling the bottles to set the tasting order. RedBreast 12 year won the tasting, with a 7.5 average rating. Second place was Bushmills 10 year, this was the only ‘single malt’ in the tasting. This rating is impressive, since historically ‘single malts’ haven’t done well with our tasting group. The third place finisher, and still receiving a respectable average 7.1 rating, was Paddy’s (or Paddy, it seems to come in two labels) this bottle was recommended by Dennis, and it is under $35, and it obviously did well, and therefore was a good recommendation, ty Dennis!
We also asked if people want to try to match the samples, to the ‘tasting notes’ from Distiller.com. It seems that many are now saying the ‘tasting notes’ are a bit overstated, and over the top, “word porn” was a phrased used by some in the group. We had five people try to do the matching, 2 participants got 3 out of 7 correct. Marc (Paddys, Bushmills, Yellow Spot) and Dane (Paddys, ClonaKilty, RedBreast), both got 3 out of 7 correct. Stacy got 2 out of 7 correct (Paddys, RedBreast). It’s much harder than it sounds, trust me!
The tasting went from 6:30pm to 9:30pm this time.
The Winners!
1st Place (7.5 $84)
2nd Place (7.3 $52)
3rd Place (7.1 $33)
The next tasting is Chocolate Creams, but it will probably be a small group. The more formal tasting will be Sake in April xxx.
Let me know, if you’re in for either one, or both!
The Survey Results
| A (Pad) | B (Clon) | C (Bush) | D (Kilb) | E (RB12) | F (Y Spot) | G(GrSpot) | H(Cream) | |
| Neil | 7 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 9 |
| Wayne | 8 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Mike K | 8 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 10 |
| Marcia | 7 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 9 |
| Tim O | 6 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 10 |
| Priya | 7 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
| Dane | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 10 |
| Renee | 5 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| Adam | 6 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 9 |
| Stacy D | 8 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| Jon T | 7 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Marc R | 6 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 |
| Robert C | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 7 |
| Daniel | 7 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 8 |
| Maria | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 10 |
| Total | 106 | 82 | 110 | 96 | 112 | 98 | 93 | 140 |
| Avg | 7.1 | 5.5 | 7.3 | 6.4 | 7.5 | 6.5 | 6.2 | 9.3 |
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