Jameson

This is a composite review of samples from 7 different bottles of standard Jameson's over a 5 year period

Nose: sharp unmalted barley with an edge of citrus, licorice, early-moderate intensity of wood flavours in the background

Taste: strong citrus, licorice; sweet and tart, sharp barley. Wood flavours are more in the background. The licorice may be light or heavy, and in 4 of 7 samples had unpleasant tinges of kerosene

Finish: long finish with all of the flavours holding up

Balance: I never know what I am going to get when I sample standard Jameson. I have had samples from two different bottles which I liked very much and would rate at 87, four others which had the heavy kerosene-licorice which I hated, and would rate at 65, and, most recently, one right in the middle, pleasant, but not as good as the first two, which I rate at 82. I average these out to settle on about 74.

In summary, I consider standard Jameson to be a very batch-variable whiskey, and while I LOVE a good batch of it, I would never buy a bottle because I don't know what I am going to get. I have found the Jameson 12 yo Special Reserve to be consistently good, by contrast, and have not seen any 'off' batches of that whiskey yet.

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