Irish Whiskey Week 2 has gone pretty well so far. On Monday I reviewed W.D. O’Connell’s Bill Phil, a peated whiskey that I quite liked. On Tuesday I reviewed a blend from Walsh Whiskey: The Irishman: The Harvest. While I didn’t give that one a very high score in the abstract, I thought it was very good for what it is: an entry-level blend. Here now is another entry-level blend. This one is from West Cork Distillers and unlike the other two, which are both sourced whiskeys, it is actually made by West Cork. Or so I assume anyway: they do have their own distillery and it produces a fairly large volume of spirit. As per their website, they have eight pot stills and two column stills and have the capacity to produce 4 million liters of spirit per year—though it’s less clear how much they actually produce. (They also bill themselves as the largest fully Irish-owned distillery in Ireland but that’s neither here nor there.) The Black Cask is comprised of 66% grain and 34% malt whiskey. It’s called the Black Cask because after three years of maturation in first-fill bourbon casks it spends another year in heavily charred bourbon casks. Quite a bit more grain in the blend than I would prefer and I’m always given pause by heavily charred bourbon casks and the potential for the contents to turn into vanilla bombs. Has that happened here or does the char tame the grain and youth? Let’s see. Continue reading →