Astor Wines | My Annoying Opinions

Glenfarclas’ “Family Casks” series of single cask releases has a very strong reputation among whisky geeks. Here in the US, we see very few of them and so when I saw that Astor Wine in New York City had one as an exclusive bottling, I picked up a bottle. Distilled in 1989 and bottle in 2013 this is either 23 or 24 years old. It cost a fair bit more than the standard 25 yo but I rationalized the purchase given the higher abv and the general reputation of the Family Cask line. Of course, that reputation is largely based on the sherry casks that form of the majority of the series, and this one—though it doesn’t say so on the label—is from a bourbon cask. Still, I was looking forward to opening it, which I did about a year ago for one of my local group’s tastings. While some in the group really liked it, a few of us were unconvinced: the nose was very nice but it seemed over-oaked on the palate. I’d hoped that time and air would fix a lot of that. Let’s see if that’s happened a year later with lots of air and time. Continue reading →

I really enjoyed the Lemorton Réserve and so I am really looking forward to this much older iteration. Especially as in his wonderful book on Calvados (which, yet again, I recommend highly) Charles Neal has high praise for older Lemortons. Granted he is speaking of vintage releases from the 1970s but still. I am curious to see if this will be closer to its much younger sibling or to the 18 yo Bordelet-Beudin I reviewed last week. I quite liked that one but noted that it seemed in many ways to be closer to bourbon and wine cask-matured malt whisky than to younger Calvados (as always, note the caveat of my very limited Calvados exposure); it was also quite oak-driven. Will all that be even more true of this even older Calvados? Let’s see.