1792 Port Finish

Thanks to /u/blaw84 for the sample.

I enjoy peanut butter. A lot. I’ve been able to cut out potato chips, most chocolate bars, and even pop from my life after enjoying all of those things for a long time. But never peanut butter, even though I completely know I’m basically eating icing sugar on my bread.

I enjoy chocolate. While yes, I don’t try to buy chocolate bars too often, I do enjoy a good quality chocolate and baked goods with chocolates.

Mix those together? You have the last chocolate candies I still get tempted enough to eat to the point of sadness and self-hate once all the tasty empty wrappers surround me like judging parents.

Thus when you tell me you’re going to take 1792, a whiskey that I’ve generally enjoyed, and finish it in a port cask, a finish that I’m a sucker for, I’m going to be happy to try it. It was aged in the traditional virgin casks prior to being given a finish for two years in ex-port wine casks. That’s impressive for a finish.

Granted then we have to ask: Did 1792 Port Finish reach the heights of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Let’s see, shall we?

Price: N/A at the LCBO

Region: Kentucky

Abv: 45.45%

Colour: 2.5YR 4/10

Nose: Plum/violets, orange, cereal, butter, char

Floral, richer dessert fruit note, and some orange. Oddly no spice that I get from the standard small batch 1792. More of the port cask has gone to town.

Time and a tiny bit of water give more of that char and cereal, though looking back at my previous review of 1792, I’m not finding many similarities.

Taste: Plum/floral, brine, caramel, Smarties, bitter wood Salted, floral caramel? Nice. At first. I do enjoy that mix, and I’m one of those people who does love that floral element in whisky.

That said, it gets quite sweet. There’s a cheap chocolate side here. Note I mean Canadian Smarties here, a thicker shelled M&M that has some floral and overtly sweet aspects.

Hear that? It’s a bunch of my fellow Canucks finding something else to complain about me. Eventually, there’s some bitter oak leftover, which sadly couldn’t be hidden by the finish.

Finish: Brine, basil, maple syrup, dandelion

Herbal and salty with some sweetness to it. Blind this finish may come off as a Canadian Whisky. However the final floral aspect ties it back, and it’s a bit bitter.

Conclusion: Very, very floral. Simply put, you buy this as a bourbon fan and you drink it to completely be different. It doesn’t act like bourbon and it doesn’t act like Scotch. If anything it acts like what I want from Canadian whiskies to go in.

Was it a success? Debatable, really. I think they would have been happier with more butter/plum filled drams that remind you of pudding. Instead, we ended up with a unique thing.

So are you hunting down this limited edition? Probably if you’re a big fan of unique drams, unique bourbons, or just uniqueness in general. It’s not what I thought it would be, but I was still having fun with aspects of it. I don’t think I’m the target, as unique for the sake of unique isn’t my thing anymore, and the rough edges and loss of some of the 1792 profile let me down a bit.

80/100

Bourbon review #240, Kentucky review #152, Whiskey Network review #1579