Jameson Distillery Edition

So I’m at Jameson. Not the actual distillery, the old distillery, in Dublin. We unfortunately did not have the time to visit the proper distillery. Next time I’m in Ireland.

However this time I took the tour. That’s a different write up for a different day. At the end, I discovered there were two “location” exclusives that you could buy: One was Jameson Black Barrel Cask Strength, and the other was Jameson Distillery Edition.

One of these were available at the bar, the other was not. As I’m on a budget and limited by customs to a certain amount of whiskey, I had to pass on buying a bottle of the Black Barrel blind. So I tried the Distillery Edition at the bar.

From what I can tell, this is the standard Jameson Irish Whiskey, however it has more of the single pot still in it than normal. It replaces the personalized 12 year reserve you could buy before.

For those of you who haven’t had the standard Jameson, it’s a blend of single pot still and grain whiskey, each of which is aged in sherry casks and ex-bourbon casks.

Oh, and they are distilled three times, as it contains unmalted barley. You need to distill a third time to make up for the lack of sugar in your alcohol from using unmalted barley. There is some talk about it making a smoother whiskey. Whether that’s correct or not is debatable.

None the less, let’s see how this tastes, shall we?

Price: €60 at the gift shop

Region: Ireland

Abv: 40%

Colour: 7.5YR 6/10

Nose: Mango, cream, ginger, buttered corn, sugarcane

Nice amount of fruit and cream on the nose. Quite sweet. If you’re not a fan of sweeter whiskies, it may not be for you.

A lot less rough than the standard. Looking back at my previous review, and thinking back to the standard Jameson that I had just drunk, this is a lot smoother and easier to nose. It’s not

Taste: Orange, brown sugar, ginger, peach, salt

Very similar to the standard Jameson. There’s sweet, orange parts to it. Any herbal notes are oddly gone. Or perhaps I was off before? Or perhaps the basil leafy note has gone but that spice side is still present, and it’s coming up as ginger.

Or as some have said, maybe I’m full of it. Always a possibility.

Finish: Corn, sugar, arugula, oak, vanilla, ginger ale, butterscotch

Finish is similar to before. I’m thinking the leafiness in the past review may be the arugula, and I didn’t give the previous one time to open. Or perhaps that just happens with reviews, where splitting the taste and finish is tough.

As I said before, the finish on Jameson is one I like quite a bit. And this is similar, so I like this. It’s sweet, spicy, some oak and vanilla. Overall nice.

Conclusion: A small step up on the standard Jameson. Which is to be expected. No, I’m not a huge Jameson fanboy. That tattoo was caused by drinking.

What I’m saying is Jameson makes an Irish whiskey in large amounts for a lot of people. It’s smooth and not a bad whiskey. It doesn’t blow my mind, but it’s good. So when a special edition comes out that is a slight tweak on the amount of single pot still, it’s going to be an improvement but not by much. It’s a double-edged sword that means the price stopped me from buying this.

74/100

World Whiskey review #225, Ireland review #43, Whiskey Network review #1044