Milk & Honey 3 Year Old 2016 for the Barrel Baron

I had the privilege of tasting this from Marcel in November last year. Not that he needed my opinion to decide whether or not to bottle it. This whisky speaks for itself from the first to the last drop. But how nice that The Barrel Baron – who after all can still be considered 'a new kid on the block' – has gotten hold of this beautiful cask. The day the bottle arrived – May 17 – I immediately popped it and published these notes. Some things just can't wait.

Excellent nose! Powerful on vanilla, Werther's Original, lime, marzipan and soft herbs. Hay and honey. Downright brilliant, really. Among the best that I have smelled from this Israeli house. And yes... it can easily handle the comparison with the beautiful Dead Sea release! If you add some water to it – I can imagine with such an ABV – then the oak is expressed a little more and the malt becomes a little sharper.

With an alcohol content of 67.3%, you would expect to have to call the fire department, but that is absolutely not the case. Talk about perfect integration. Intense heat, but not burning. Very spicy, though. Toasted oak with a salty edge, sweet and sour on grapefruit with a nice sweet layer of honey, caramel and vanilla on top. Truly... water is not necessary. But it tolerates it. It then exchanges some sweetness for oak.

The finish is long, warm and sweet with a lot of woodsmoke on the deathbed. Man, that's good! Diluted, it remains at least as long, but a considerable amount of wood is added, which is not necessary for me.

Excellent choice! Kudos to Marcel that he could lay his hands on this cask and to Tomer Goren and his team of the Milk & Honey Distillery that they could conjure this out of their stills and cask.