Bakery Hill Peated 46% Cask 2,308

[Johnny Murgatroyd]

Now it's my time to be a patriot and taste the most famous Australian whisky of the present era. Yeah.

I love the choice of name "Bakery Hill", which is the place where Mr Lalor commanded the miners to take the Oath of the Southern Cross in 1854. I also like the label, which has a simple design of a crossed pick and shovel, with a simple font reminiscent of colonial-era labelling. I can smell the pale dust of the Ballarat goldfields and see the redcoats marching under the gumtrees!

I wish, however, that they had used a more interesting bottle, rather than what is little more than a wine bottle. I was also not pleased to find that the bottle contained only 500 mL. What??

I have actually tasted the Cask Strength Peated as well, in sample form, but since I lack the $130 plus required to purchase it, let us settle with the Standard Strength. By the way, the label has the number of the barrel on it - does this make it a single barrel whisky? Cool.

Glass:
Glencairn

Colour:
Quite golden, slightly rose gold. Unlike scotch, the label explicitly contains the words "no caramel".

Body:
Medium

Water:
Neat and slightly watered

Nose:
Instantly likeable. Bakery Hill has a distinctive sugary nose that is aptly described by Nick Brown as "icing sugar". I get the icing sugar, but also red jam, biscuit and marshmallows, which makes the whisky smell strangely like an Iced Vo-Vo (or, to use another Australian metaphor, a Neenish tart). Maybe even a lamington?? The peat is fairly subdued, with a vegetal character.
Initial runs of Peated Bakery Hill used imported Scottish peated barley due to wrangles with Victorian laws about burning peat. Now, I understand, they use Australian barley smoked with Australian peat.

Taste:
The taste has much the same flavour as the nose. The taste is noticeably drier than the nose, however, with the peatiness being more evident. Also bourbony notes.

Finish:
Peat. Caol Ila peat. Or Highland Park peat. Cut grass.

Overall, a whisky that is surprisingly characterful, not just a bland experiment in photocopying scotch whisky but its own man.

[Johnny Murgatroyd]

After adding more water to this whisky, I would like to add that you might want to avoid doing this: the distinctive sweetish flavours are overwhelmed by bourbon. I also get the newmakey spirity nose after adding water.

[Johnny Murgatroyd]

I am now tasting a much later cask bottling (about 7,000 or so). I must say, I am missing the old bottle I once had. This is much peatier than the whisky I reviewed before, but there's a strange hollowness below. Some biscuitiness still, but where's the jam? Where's the marshmallow and icing?

I'd better try to get a bottle of the old 2,308 if I can

[Johnny Murgatroyd]

...just to prove me wrong, my bottle of Cask 7,311 has got a lot, lot better. It;'s taken weeks, but it's opening up now!

The empty peaty bitterness is now filled up with gristiness, marzipan, orange syrup - almost like sniffing orange flavoured sponge cake. The taste is pretty well improved too. Not what it was before...but maybe better, as the jammyness I remember from before may have been a youthful indicator - this is more complex, more subtle. Nice stuff!

And this has been yet another reminder to me of the danger of Glassed Whisky - let it breathe for a bit fellas!!