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Tullamore Dew 10 Year Old

Wine Complexity Plus Citrus

0 584

@VictorReview by @Victor

5th Aug 2011

0

Tullamore Dew 10 Year Old
  • Nose
    23
  • Taste
    22
  • Finish
    21
  • Balance
    18
  • Overall
    84

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Distribution of ratings for this: brand user

Tullamore Dew Single Malt 10 years old, first released in late 2009, was double distilled at the Cooley Distillery. It was matured in bourbon barrels before portions were finished in a combination of Madeira, Port, and Sherry casks. The reviewed bottle has been open for four weeks.

Nose: floral, fruity sweet and some sour citrus, with elements of all of the wine finishes present. If you didn't know in advance which wine finishes were used, you might need a good bit of time to ferret out the various contrasting flavours. They are all there, and you can smell each of them. This malt seems to have a greater than average amount of bourbon residue left in the flavouring. The wood influence is very noticeable here, after the initial fruity wine and citrus greeting. This is a very interesting and quite complex nose. Oddly, despite being bottled at only 40% ABV, the alcohol greeting is rather strong, and detracts a little from the overall effect.

Taste: all of the nose flavours translate onto the palate. The flavours are strong, and stronger and fuller still after four weeks of bottle open. There is a great deal of complexity, particularly if you like appreciating the hunting for the wine finish flavours. I CAN taste all of the individual wine flavours here, and that is my favourite characteristic of this malt. A moderate strength of lemon citrus is the other prominent flavour here. Malted barley flavour very much takes a back seat to the wine and citrus flavours.

Finish: very strong and long, continuing the citrus and wine theme. I particularly like the wine flavours on the finish. The citrus component is more than I like.

Balance: I enjoy these flavours a lot, but would prefer less citrus in the mix. For my palate a little citrus is usually ok, but moderate or strong citrus is distracting to the balance. I like the elements of this whiskey very much, but feel that the citrus is overdone.

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5 comments

@Victor
Victor commented

Adding water to this mellows out the citrus somewhat, but makes the wine finish flavours run together and become much less distinct.

12 years ago 0

@Pudge72
Pudge72 commented

Do you think that, like the Wathens, the citrus notes will dissipate over time? Or, will the wine finishes alter or prevent that from happening? Great review @Victor, as always!

12 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor commented

@Pudge72, I find the Tullamore Dew Malt to be an unusual whiskey. I am very interested to see how the flavours shift over time now that the bottle is open, but I don't have a prediction on how that might occur. What I have seen with flavour migrations in other whiskies is increasing sweetness, slight rounding and lessening of the more intense flavours, a general opening up of flavours, and in the case of highly peated whiskies, a slight lessening of the peat smoke flavours, especially in the nose. Happily, "soapy" flavours have, in my experience, often, actually, usually, disappeared over time. Sometimes it takes a very long time for that to happen, though. I know of only one case in which I have seen strong citrus lessen over time, so I don't really have a feel whether that will change in the Tullamore Dew. I hope that it will. I also hope that the distinctness of the wine flavours will remain. I really like tasting the different wine finishes in this whiskey. (The Wathens strong citrus hasn't changed as of yet in my bottle from barrel # 1303)

12 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor commented

@Pudge72, 11 months now after I opened my bottle of Tullamore Dew 10 yo Single Malt, the citrus flavours are only slightly lessened overall, but their edges have been rounded. All the other flavours have also rounded out as well, which makes the wine flavours not quite as distinct and easy to pick out as they had been at first. Overall, though, I like this better now than when I first wrote the review, and would now rate this up a couple of points to 86. Jim Murray liked it to the degree of 91.5, and said it is the best Tullamore whiskey he has ever encountered.

11 years ago 0

@Pudge72
Pudge72 commented

Thanks for the update @Victor! I think I am in the 'mild citrus notes can be very nice...but let's not go overboard with them' camp so far in my experiences. This also depends on the type of whisk(e)y that I discover the citrus flavours within (i.e. I almost expect a variation of orange notes in wheated bourbons and sherry bomb Scotches).

11 years ago 0