Shortly after I started this blog, a very (VERY) kind reader sent me a pair of Pappy samples. … The 20-year is bottled at 45.2% ABV (contrast with the 15-year at 53.5%). Most of the dismissive “too cool for Pappy” commentary on the ‘net would have you believe that the 20- and 23-year are overly oaky and that the 15-year is best.
Hazelburn 12 seems to have come into its own. It has funky, oily notes that lovers of Springbank will know well, but paired with honey and vanilla and pear instead of peat. A pleasant, floral-forward malt with a deep complexity.
Despite the “Powers” name, this release bears little resemblance to the bottom-shelf Powers blend, which is a typical Irish blended whiskey containing both pot-still whiskey and cheap grain whiskey. The John’s Lane bottling is 100% single (formerly “pure”) pot still Irish whiskey. … triple-distilled in copper pot stills by Midleton from a recipe of both malted and unmalted barley and aged for 12 years in ex-bourbon and sherry casks …
Created in 1978 to compensate for a legal skirmish that took Johnnie Walker Red Label off of UK store shelves, it failed to recapture even a portion of that lost market share. … Whyte & Mackay master blender and celebrity whisky personality Richard Paterson re-formulated the recipe, likely a necessity since the blend now needed to be composed of whiskies available to W&M instead of the full Diageo stable. In early 2017 the brand was re-launched with new packaging.