My first brush with Teeling was with their Single Grain matured in California Red Wine Cabernet casks and I have to tell you I fell instantly in love. It was such a beautiful and unique flavor profile that I had no choice but to.
Since there's not a lot of Teeling Whiskey where I live (Dubai) I really had to dig around to get my hands on a different expression from this extremely young distillery.
Dublins' first distillery in 125 years Teeling is run by Jack Teeling. Jack's family has a long history of whisky making going as far back as 1782 when a certain Walter Teeling set up a small craft distillery to make Irish whiskey. Since then the distillery, like Irish whiskey, has had it's ups and downs but now it seems that both are back in business.
To commemorate the revival of both the distillery as well as Irish whiskey this 15 year single malt was released a few months ago to eager whisky beavers like my self who were really curious to see what older Teelings would taste like. I don't know about anyone else but I was super disappointed.
My sample is from a brand new bottle served at 46%, distilled in 1999 and matured exclusively in ex-Rum casks.
Quite sharp. Very fruity. Like fruit sweets. Light honey. Lemon. Macarons. Hint of smoke. Dry leaves. Pineapples. Apricots. Sugar cane. Crisp green apples. One of the more sweet and fruity whiskies I've come across of late. But let it sit for a while and certain unwelcome astringency comes wafting through. I started off liking it but now not so much. Strange. 21/25
Oh no. Something's wrong here. I get the fruits but the spirit feels raw here. I know it shouldn't be but it is. There's the light honey and canned peaches but now there's a distracting bitterness that's throwing me off. That astringency on the nose is in full force on the palate. 17/25
Tropical fruits. Dry lychees. And that damn bitterness again! 19/25
Now I'm not a whisky expert so I'm not sure what went wrong here. The whisky is relatively new so there's not a lot of other reviews that I can look at to see if other people had the same reaction. All I can tell you is I don't like it. Which is sad. Because I really wished I did.
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