Goodradigbee Ironbark Yellow

Nose: Overwhelmingly just alcohol, like smelling vodka with a whisper of wood shavings. Palate: Bland alcohol with a subtle woody taste. Finish: Nonexistent. I had not heard about this until yesterday when I saw it at a pop-up stall at our local liquor shop. It was the second product from that maker I tasted (after the bland expression) and this was even more tasteless. It actually made me angry. It doesn’t taste like new-make barley spirit and it has a raw alcohol character so it’s probably sourced grain spirit made from wheat. It’s obviously very young, thin and characterless with no sign of the complexity or integration you get from proper maturation. That distillery are not using oak casks to age their spirit for the required 2 years so it can be called whisky. Instead they are using Australian hardwood boxes and maturing for just a few months. They claim this “innovative” system provides more surface area for maturation. However putting spirit into a small box to age for a few months clearly achieves very little so I think it’s more likely that they are just avoiding the expense of buying oak casks and the cost of cooperage. This isn’t a fast maturation system like pressure-treatment with oak blocks or chips which can achieve some semblance of maturation (if you’re lucky). It’s just a failed experiment. This product is no longer listed on their website and seems to have been withdrawn so unless you find old stock somewhere you will be safe. Avoid at all costs. “Very Poor”: 58/100 (0.75 stars)