alberta premium dark horse

Alberta premium dark horse

Dark horse is flying off the shelf, and I can see why. This is excellent whisky. aged a little longer than the A.P. base offering(6 and 12 years old), a little sweeter and more balanced. This whisky has it all. Presentation, nose, palate and my favorite, controversy.
The controversy comes from Alberta distillers stating that the blend recipe holds 1% sherry. Its not sherry finished, it has sherry added right to it. 91% rye 8% corn and 1% sherry.
The new school of whisky is pushing distillers and blenders to come to this point. To knock down some barriers, in the cause of creating great drink.

Alc. 45%

Bottle: classic old school clear, shouldered cylinder with a bullet proof looking bottom. Like I mean thick bottom man. If James Caan smashed Kathy Bates in the head with this rather than a typewriter, the movie would have been 15 minutes shorter. Cool label. I wonder if metallica is going to sue.

Nose:
Slate and grapes. Its sweet and sour with a little bourbon oak, like a raw wood influence.

Palate:
Mmm, spicy rye is forward. Fruit. Wine. Baking spices are heavily flaunted above oak and pepper. A hint of eucalyptus, dark fruit, cooked fruit, jammy and light cigar tobacco. Licorice.

Please note:
This is an Alberta premium instant classic. It’s a straight rye, but with loose Canadian whisky technicalities, dark horse is able to gallop right by some rules that put it in the winners circle. There’s a healthy dose of corn whisky mixed in to the rye blend as well as sherry. Canadian whisky producers can add 9.09% of whatever to whisky to change the flavor profile however they wish. In this case, they added just a smidgen of sherry. Don’t get upset though. Producers have been ageing in sherry casks for years now. The sherry and whisky DO intermingle. The sherry helps sweeten and add a depth of flavor unapproachable by all other whiskies. This stuff is crazy good.

Overall:
I wanted to dislike this stuff, I really did after the C.C. sherry cask debacle. C.C. should be taking notes on how to produce smaller scale, higher end whiskies, but I guess being worth millions and millions of dollars is pretty cool too. recommended.