Bushmills 16 Three Wood

Thanks to /u/boyd86 for the sample.

This past year (2018) I had lots and lots of plans. Finish my accounting schooling, find a new job in a new career space, INSERT SOMETHING FUNNY HERE THAT IS OBVIOUS I DIDN’T DO FOR COMEDIC EFFECT, and review enough Irish Whiskey to finally hit 100 total reviews.

I’m happy to say I got most of that done, and DO A CALLBACK TO THE JOKE. As for posting the reviews, I may have gotten behind what with learning derivatives and THE LAST CALLBACK AS A RUNNING GAG. So I’m posting them now! Yay!

I’ve had my sample of Bushmills 16 Three Wood for a while. It was originally way, way up there on my list of To-Dos. Somehow I kept pushing it back, so I’m glad I finally kicked my own ass and caught up on Irish Whiskey samples.

So the idea behind this is simple. Take Bushmills Single Malt, age it for 16 years, use three different casks to age it. Separately? Kinda. They initially age it for 15 years separately in ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks and then finish them together in Port Pipes. Which based on playing Mortal Kombat and struggling with finishing moves, must be tough.

I kid of course. I figured out a bunch of those moves.

But how does it taste? I mean, normally a year finish isn’t a good sign. Like 15 years didn’t do much in ex-bourbon or ex-sherry to warrant it. Well let’s see, shall we?

Price: N/A at the LCBO

Region: Ireland

Cask Types: American Oak, Oloroso Sherry & Port Pipes

Abv: 40%

Colour: 10YR 7/10

Nose: Mint, strawberry, plum, pretzels, caramel

Nice strong sherry influence, mixed with the port influence. The caramel that eventually comes in rounds it all out. It is quite sweet.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise what with the port cask, the Oloroso sherry cask, and all of the vanilla influence from the ex-bourbon. The two wines knock out the poor ex-bourbon malt though.

Taste: Plum, hoppy floral, butter, lemon

Think an earthy/floral flavour. Nothing too over the top with some butter and lemon. Almost like the ex-bourbon made the others feel bad so they just added some plum and then backed the fuck off.

Finish: Chestnut, caramel, violets, brine, coconut

Nutty finish with everything getting along. You have the sherry bringing nuts, the port bringing floral/violets, and the ex-bourbon getting in there with coconut to balance out the sweeter aspects.

Conclusion: Yeah I like Bushmills. It’s really obvious from these. This punched well, well above the low abv. Frankly, I didn’t think I’d like it at the start given that low abv. I didn’t think I’d like it given a short finish after two full maturation. Heck, I really enjoyed Bushmills before, but all of the above, even with an age statement, makes me worried.

And then I finally got around to it and it has this wonderful mixture of the good sides of Oloroso, the fun aspects of port, and a backbone of ex-bourbon to fill in the spots. Yes, this is tasty. Yes, I’d take this over many other similarly aged single malts on the market.

83/100

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