Danfield's Limited Edition 21 Year Old

The reviewed bottle has been open for 21 months and is 90% full. Review will be in non-sequential format (SQVH)

Strength: strong flavours of rye, wood, and wine. Score: 22/25 all whiskies; 23/25 Canadian Category

Quality: for the first 5 months of the bottle open, the flavours did not come together for me with this whisky. After that, they gelled nicely, and showed me the whisky of which Jim Murray and others have thought so highly. This is heavy on maple flavours from oak, and has a lot of sweetness. I am not sure where the sweetness comes from, whether from wood, or added caramel, sweet wine finishing, etc. The wood flavours themselves are good but not great. A little tired tasting, but pleasant. Spice from rye grain is a primary feature, and the rye grain flavours here are good to very good, but not especially refined. Score: 22/25 all; 23/25 Canadian

Variety: there is plenty to engage the attention among the various component parts. Score 22/25 all; 23/25 Canadian

Harmony: once the flavours gelled together, they formed a very nice harmony, heavy on very sweet maple. Spice and wine are more apparent in the nose and early in the delivery, and sweet maple becomes more prominent into the long finish. Score 22/25 all; 23/25 Canadian

Total Scores: 89 all whiskies; 92 Canadian