Well I’ve gotta hand it to Peter Mulryan & all the team at Blackwater Distillery for launching a sourced volume bonders blend & getting it seriously appraised by the Whiskey Nerd community.
Many other similarly styled brands are regularly lambasted.
But first to the whiskey.
A rich reddy brown hue with an invitingly warm hug of a nose.
The palate had a depth & complexity resplendent of the port, stout & rye cask finishing having worked their magic.
A touch of drying spiciness at the end added a final flourish to this characterful little blend.
An easy, entertaining & accessible whiskey that fulfills the brief Blackwater intended.
The much publicised launch coupled with the delightful sample package ensured a wide audience for the Facebook Live event.
Peter gave a fairly precise potted history of both the origins of Velvet Cap – as well as a synopsis of the modern Irish Whiskey Industry.
I welcome the growing diversity of styles, brands & flavours coming out of this wonderful renaissance in Irish Whiskey globally.
The rather narrow & monopolistic view that defined Irish Whiskey of the recent past is inhibiting the future growth today.
The mantra of honesty & transparency is leading to some entertaining avenues – and focuses the debate onto what is or isn’t written on the label – rather than on what the whiskey actually tastes like.
Does a whiskey that says the ‘wrong’ things taste worse than any others?
An emphatic NO from Whiskey Nut.
Hyde came in for a lot of criticism on this front.
Interestingly in blind tastings, the brand always scored highly on my palate, irrespective of the labelling – which has been amended.
The blended whiskey market is a crowded category. Most of the people purchasing these brands are not whiskey nerds.
The finer details of the sales patter, cask maturation, mashbill composition or distillery of source may not be to the fore here – but taste & accessibility might.
Taste is very subjective.
An interesting analysis of taste came my way recently. A worthy read.
So when someone says;
‘I’m enjoying Velvet Cap’
It’s better than 500 words of BS any day!
Sláinte
WestmeathWhiskeyWorld 
I totally missed the info about port cask in this one! Need to read their articles again. I really enjoyed the article you linked to, about taste. Especially the part about cultural flavour wheels – I’ve thought a lot about that lately, how our culture effects what flavours and aromas we experience in a whiskey.
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