Cardhu 12y with Steve, Goran, Julia, Dan & Matt

Untitled1Welcome to 2016 and THE FUTURE! It’s a leap year and I hear there may even be a new iPhone this year. Marvelous time, this future.

What better way to kick off the new year, our 6th calendar year of domain registration (even if maybe the first couple months there was nothing here), than with a proper single malt scotch review from a distiller we haven’t tried before. That’s the whole reason we started doing this thing in the first place! Stay tuned for February when we celebrate the 4th anniversary of the first post and you get to read even more pointless milestone chatter. New Year!

Cardhu 12y, the “quintessential Cardhu“. This distiller is part of the Diageo battlegroup of liquor brands, making them stablemates with Talisker, Oban, Lagavulin, Cragganmore & Caol Ila, to name a few. In my opinion, the top tier of internationally available Scotch that’s reliably available through the LCBO. This is where you go when you have a couple extra dollars and want to be sure to taste them.

Cardhu is a Speyside whisky. As someone who typically does not enjoy Speyside whiskies (the floral end of the flavour spectrum is just simply not why I drink whisky), I can tell you this is not a typical Speyside. The floral character is present but balanced with fruit and honey, and the mild spice you’d expect at 12y. It did, however, overpower our two more novice tasters – here’s what we thought:

colour
Simon – honey
Steve – light honey
Goran – amber gold
Julia – honey
Dan – white wine
Matt – honey

nose
Simon – slight sulphur & spice, a little peaty & winey, some chocolate & floral, fruity, apple flowers
Steve – winey, fruity, very strong, grape
Goran – floral, vanilla, orange
Julia – spicy, floral
Dan – sweet green apples with hints of wood
Matt – cherry notes, brandy, slight iodine

neat
Simon – floral & spicy, light, smooth & creamy, licorice, anise, light, flowers
Steve – winey, fruity, powerful, like wine, strong, initially too powerful, after a couple of sips, apple
Goran – vanilla, dry fruit, spicy, caramel
Julia – dry, bitter, spicy
Dan – pear, dried fruit, warm spice
Matt – raspberry, wood shavings

finish
Simon – shorter, pleasant, light, quite mild with a little burn
Steve – medium
Goran – medium long, butter, caramel, more butter
Julia – medium, nasty aftertaste
Dan – medium
Matt – shorter

splash
Simon – light, sweet fruit, almost syrupy
Steve – watery same as neat
Goran – n/a
Julia – n/a
Dan – spice, wood, pear, in that order
Matt – mellow buttery

overall – not for beginners.
Simon – 7.7/10
Steve – 2/10
Goran – 9/10
Julia – 4/10
Dan – 8.9/10
Matt – 7.5/10

Cardhu 12y – 40% 750ml – $74.95 – Speyside

Try it? Yes! Buy it? Yes.

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