Overeem Sherry Cask Cask - Cask Strength

I first encountered Overeem, a little Tasmanian whisky, at Whisky Live Perth this last year. Before that I'd never heard of them. At Whisky Live I got to chatting with the head distiller of Sullivan's Cove who suggested I give the Overeem a try.

And I was blown away. Completely and utterly. enjoyed their entry level whiskies, love their port cask strength, but it was the sherry cask strength that for me, took away the title best whisky in the show.

It was so awesome that I dragged my entire whisky club to the booth to try it, and everyone responded with whoa!

However outside of my local whisky friends, whenever I'd say that the sherry cask strength was my favorite, everyone would look at me and go "Really?! Even more then the port cask strength?! We all prefer the port cask strength, I can't believe you love the sherry cask strength, I mean it's great, but better then the port?!"

Those thoughts were echoed by fellow connosr member and good buddy, Systemdown, and even Jane Overeem, one of the owners of Overeem. Everyone!

Gah!

Oh well different strokes for different folks.

And then the latest Whisky Bible was released, and I wound up chatting with Jane over the phone and one of the first things she said to me was "Well I guess you're right."

Huh

Turns out that Jim Murray shares some of the same tastes as myself, he loved the port cask strength, but his baby was the sherry cask strength, giving it a 95/100.

Haha, I knew I wasn't crazy, or am I?!

Anyway this is one of my favorite Australian whiskies, one that I'd love to get as a Christmas present and seeing as how I've got a slight Christmasy theme going on in my reviews, I figured I'd do a write up on it.

This is bottle 34/135 from cask 32.

Love, Love the nose!

Big Christmas nose, spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, mint, cloves, dark fruits, sultanas, figs, raisins, plums, citrus, burnt caramel, mild vanilla, dark chocolate, some leather, the very faintest hint of meat (trust me it's there, pork crackling).

Yeah I definitely love that nose.

And personally I find the palate just as awesome, again the huge spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, the dark fruits, sultanas, figs, raisins, but they lurk in the background behind the spices, citrus, dark chocolate, cocoa, cocoa is dominating towards the end, with the spices, sweet fruits and bitter cocoa playing together in a way that has me grinning from ear to ear.

Even nicer is that I don't find the palate on this as hot as the port cask strength, so it'd be a good introduction to Aussie cask strengths in my opinion.

Super long finish, spices again dominating.

Yeah it's safe to say that I love this whisky. I've had batches that were just great to batches that are phenomenal, as is the case with all single barrel releases, but I haven't had a bad one yet.

Price point is around $180 or so here in Australia, but you might struggle to find them in bottle shops as they're just gaining some traction here in Western Australia, but if you can find, it's definitely worth a purchase in my opinion.