Review: Slainte Irish Whiskey
The phenomenon of celebrity owned libations continues. Sláinte was founded by Richard Davies, who serves as director of the brand, along with actor Liev Schreiber of Spotlight and Ray Donovan fame. The whiskey is distilled, matured, and blended at The Great Northern Distillery in County Louth, Ireland, and it has a rather unusual barrel aging process. As they explain:
Sláinte is a unique exceptional triple barrel marriage of premium American bourbon oak matured single grain whiskey and triple-distilled rare sherry butt single malt whiskey. We then combine and hand finish back into bourbon casks.
The whiskey is made from corn and malted Irish barley, triple distilled, and aged a minimum of three years. Let’s give it a try.
Made without unmalted barley, Sláinte presents less vanilla than we typically find in more traditional Irish whiskeys. The nose is, instead, quite light, offering subtle notes of apple, cinnamon, and cereal grain along with a little ethanol. The palate is a bit more assertive but fairly one dimensional, introducing sweet apple, caramel, some vanilla, and powdered sugar along with cereal grain. The finish is a bit short and offers a pepper note as well as a touch of astringency. All told, this is a fairly uncomplicated, rather sweet Irish whiskey that would pair nicely with dessert as an after dinner dram.
80 proof.
