Whiskey Advent Calendar Tasting: Burnt Ends Blended Whiskey
This is part of my series on tasting notes from the 2021 Drinks By The Dram Bourbon Advent Calendar.
Whiskey for December 9th, 2021: Burnt Ends Blended Whiskey
The distillery
The distillery here is a complete unknown. Burnt Ends is an experimental whiskey blending by Atom Labs with is part of Atom Group which seems to own Master of Malt and Drinks by the Dram who make this advent calendar. There's not much other information about Atom Labs other than the fact they were started in 2019:
This internal ‘Idea Factory’ allows Atom Brands to ruthlessly pursue innovation and disruption within the drinks industry by using in-house expertise to rapidly prototype and test new ideas.
Which sounds like a lot of useless marketing copy mumbo-jumbo.
The whiskey
Master of Malt describes this whiskey as:
Inspired by the tasty goods served at the barbecue joints of the USA, this rich, meaty expression brings together Tennessee rye whiskey and sherry cask-finished peated single malt Scotch whisky,
We don't know much about the rye or the scotch used here, but they do provide some pretty comprehensive tasting notes for us:
Nose: Deliciously rich and spicy with rye notes prominent. Massive hit of peat quickly overtakes the proceedings, with more than a touch of apple juice in the background.
Palate: Epic. Barbecue sauce and smoky sausage all the way. The marriage of rye and peat hangs together perfectly.
Finish: Long, smoky, lingering.
I'm not going to lie, this doesn't sound appetizing to me. I have previously not enjoy High West's Campfire Whiskey, which seems similar in construction to this, but I will do my best to go into it with an open mind.
Look
This whiskey is quite red, almost like a tawny port. It turns into lovely thick sheets of glycerine that drips down for a while before turning into tons of little legs.
Nose
Smokey peat punches you in the face right when you're starting to enjoy a little sweet rye spice in the beginning. All I can smell is peat. Just peat. Nothing but peat. sigh
Taste
Much like the nose, it starts sweet and spicy and then finishes like an islay scotch. Smokey, peaty, and even briney with a little antiseptic. This tastes like two different whiskey drank back to back. It doesn't taste like a marriage of two whiskeys at all. If you want to pound a rye with a scotch chaser, this is the right one to do it with.
After water
Water tames the peat in the smell and in the taste. So it's not quite the punch in the face anymore, but still has a commanding presence. The nose and taste profile stays the same.
Summary
As I'm not a big fan of peaty scotches, I'm not super qualified to rate this whiskey. I don't think this is a good "like american barbecue" expression. I would expect a sweeter whiskey with a less peaty and more smokey scotch if I were going to make that attempt. That said, if you like scotches, and you like rye whiskey, this is definitely both of these.