Powers Gold Label with Steph

Every year like clockwork March stumbles in from the cold and delivers Irish Stereotype Reinforcement Day to warm the cockles of your projectile vomiting heart. St Paddy’s Day in North America has as much to do with Ireland as Chinese food in North America has to do with China – as in maybe a immigrant from there first brought the idea but North America made it bigger stronger faster more and then added corn syrup. In this case the corn syrup is Boston.

And so – a good excuse for an Irish whiskey post, although it’s not really fair to tie good whiskey to binge drinking and binge fighting. But that’s okay, Powers Gold Label Irish Whiskey isn’t really a good whiskey. Despite laying claim to being the first Irish whiskey ever bottled, and to throwing away more top (poisonous methanol produced at the beginning of fermentation) and tail (fusel alcohols that are just hangover fuel), and to being the best selling Irish whiskey, it’s… not great. But the best selling beer isn’t that good, the best selling car is meh, the best selling anything is usually fine, not great.

Kind of makes you wonder why authors wear “best seller” like a badge of honour…

Anyway, here’s what we thought:

nose
Steph – cookie dough & vanilla
Simon – almond & marzipan

neat
Steph – nut brittle, orchard fruit, baked apples
Simon – apple jack, thin, sharp

finish
Steph – starts sweet, ends sweet
Simon – chest warm & mouth burn, like wood stove pellets

splash
Steph – menthol, no flavour
Simon – burn is unstructured

overall
Steph – 4/10
Simon – 5/10

Power’s Gold Label Blended Irish Whiskey – 43.2% 750ml – $39.95 – Cork

Try it? Meh. Buy it? Nah.