Where does the time go, here we are in mid-March and this will be the first post of the year. Truth be told, I had intended, and still plan to post one final favorite pour of 2020 to sit alongside Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Barrel Proof, but my creative desire to do so was sapped back in January. For now, I have a lineup of seasonally appropriate posts that seem better suited to this time of year. Doubtlessly you are seeing plenty of Irish Whiskey advertisements right about now as we are in the week of Saint Patrick’s Day. It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of one particular Irish Whiskey - Redbreast’s 12-year Cask Strength, but rather than celebrate a favorite, I am going to lament a Redbreast that fell a bit short for me.
Redbreast 15-year seemed like a no-brainer - three years older than my beloved 12-year, 46% ABV, and an enticing selection of maturation barrels. Compliments of several interviews with Midleton Distillery staff that I’ve read and listened to, I learned Redbreast 15-year, like it’s 12-year counterpart is matured in first-fill ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, but the 15-year also contains whiskey aged in refill bourbon and sherry casks. If you spend any amount of time reading reviews of Redbreast 15-year, you’ll quickly discover that it is wildly well regarded. Nary a bad review can be found in an ocean of praise which leads me to the plot-twist of this post - my experience has been pretty far from enjoyable.
Below are Redbreast’s official tasting notes for their 15-year bottling:
Nose
Full and rich with a complex yet balanced mix of berry fruits and aromatic oils.
Taste
Fully round and mellow with the succulence of fleshy fruit combined with spices and toasted wood.
Finish
Long and sophisticated
Upon opening my bottle for the first time, there was immediate trouble: wafting up from the glass was the unmistakable smell of match heads. Sulfur! There are a handful of sulfur variations one can experience. Anyone who grew up in Florida doubtlessly knows the rotten-egg version of sulfur courtesy of irrigation systems that use well water. There is also a vegetal brussels sprouts/cabbage variant of sulfur, but neither the egg nor cabbage version was present in the Redbreast. For me, the sulfur I was smelling was squarely of the match head kind and it was entirely off putting to me.
Being a freshly opened bottle, I desperately hoped leaving my pour open to the air for an extended period of time would help diffuse the unwanted sulfur influence, but alas no luck. Depressingly, not only did the sulfur influence carry over to the taste from the smell, but it was amplified significantly on the tongue. The sulfur dominated the tasting experience for me, but lurking in the darkest reaches of each sip were hallmark Redbreast attributes - fruit and oak. The problem was the dominance of the sulfur; in a totally unscientific ratio, the sulfur was 75% of the taste leaving the remaining 25% to the fruit and oak.
Adding water did help reduce the sulfur impression, but doing so frustratingly also reduced the vibrancy of the fruit notes. Further exasperating the situation, what normally would be welcomed, a pleasantly long finish, was anything but as the sulfur continued in the mouth long after the sip. Disgruntled, I decided on a drastic measure: transfer ~1/3 of the bottle’s contents to an empty bottle and leave the remaining 2/3’s of the bottle stored away for a few months in the hope that an extended slumber with air would help dissipate the sulfur note.
Revisiting the bottle 21 weeks after initially storing it, the sulfur note is diminished, but not eliminated. While still not overly enjoyable, I do find the whiskey palatable, its sulfur note approaching amicable levels. Recently, while researching Redbreast’s new Small Batch Cask Strength release, I came across a few posts in the whiskey-centric corners of Reddit and YouTube that mentioned some sulfur-influenced batches of Redbreast, particularly in their 14 to 15-year old stock that was bottled in 2019 and 2020. The sources went on to claim that the folks at the Midleton Distillery corrected the issue, though not before some sulfur-influenced batches were bottled and shipped. Full disclosure, these claims are not coming from official sources, so take this as nothing more than Internet scuttlebutt chatter. Speaking personally, the idea that my specific bottle of Redbreast 15-year emanated from an anomalous batch and is not indicative of the profile Redbreast intended is feasible to me. Combined with the ocean of praise I mentioned above - nearly a decade of reviews with none mentioning any sulfur influence, I am comfortable saying that my specific experience was indeed a one-off, an unfortunate mistake.
While it will probably be some time before I take the plunge on another Redbreast 15-year, I am happy to report that a recently purchased bottle of my personal favorite - Redbreast’s 12-year Cask Strength - is totally free of match head sulfur and just as good as I remember; that’s the version I still enthusiastically recommend without hesitation.
In sticking with the 'Redbreast in March' theme, another offering from Midleton is up next.
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