Teeling Small Batch Whiskey with Dan

Now here’s something we haven’t had in a while – a new Irish whiskey! Teeling has been showing up in my Twitter feed a lot lately, so it was a nice coincidence that Dan picked up a bottle.

Here’s something weird. If you Google for “teeling”, the first hit (paid advertising) is their competition Jameson, owned by competing humongous drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard. A+ way to screw with your competition is to buy your way onto the top of their search results.

Teeling Small Batch is the brand’s entry bottle for aged whiskey. This is a blended whiskey from “selected casks” which is then further aged in rum barrels. I’m not normally a huge rum flavours fan but in this case I can say it definitely works. Here’s what we thought:

nose
Dan – slightly astringent followed by an apple sweetness, tart
Simon – irish for sure, apples. wet vegetable something. slight nose burn

neat
Dan – oaky with hints of spice and apple skin, sweet honey type earthiness
Simon – slight pop, apples & sugar, slight cinnamon

finish
Dan – light and thin
Simon – lighter burn than expected

splash
Dan – mild oakiness with more baked apple than fresh, honey/light vanilla at the end
Simon – like apple jacks, sweet apple hooch

free association
Dan – like eating a fallen grape from the mouth of cleopatra
Simon – harvest in an orchard

overall
Dan – 8.6/10
Simon 8.1/10

 Teeling Small Batch Whiskey – 46% 700ml – $57.85 – Ireland

Try it? Yes! Buy it? Yes.