hello you multi macho malt mavens and thank you to aaron cheyenne or shan for
that mention i'm ralphie in the mother somewhere in the irish sea with a whiskey review
and it's a single malt because i'm doing a short series at the moment
on official bottlings widely available not necessarily whiskeys i would buy
um if i wasn't reviewing them but i just want to give you
my opinion and my perspective should you consider buying them for yourselves
and what i have here today is tommentool space eye distillery very much off the radar
up until a few years ago when like a few other distilleries including strathmill tomatin turmoil
it was invisible as a single malt except through some of the independent bottlers because it was
producing for blends so contributing towards blended scotch by contributing the malt component
and when blenders are blending they want a full pallet range of malts
not just a load of strong flavored malts like talisker for example or
mortlak another good example distinctive assertive single malts they're also looking for
softer gentler single malts and tommen tool is definitely along with glenn murray for example
another good example one of tom novolen yep one of the gentler single malts
and to be honest it's not one that i'm immediately attracted to attracted to for buying because
it's a bit in the soft side and i fly i find it generally pleasant but a little bit anemic a bit
like knocking though but this particular bottling is a little bit different from the standard range
which is fairly extensive you can get all sorts of versions of tommen tool but many of them are
bottled at 40 in fact most of them are bottled of the standard range are bottled at 40 percent
chill filtered etc you know the script this is more of an integrity bottling they don't state
that it's natural color but if you look at that i can assure you that's pretty much a natural
color it's reassuring because it's telling me that there's a good proportion of first fill or fresh
ex-bourbon casks being used to contribute towards this batch of single malt it's bottled at 46
and it states on the label not chill filtered and when you look at the bottle in a nice cool
winter time party you can clearly see there's a little bit of a haze so we're off to a pretty
good start and i bought this bottle because i like the fact that here is an example from
tom and tool who are sort of reaching out a little bit with a version of their whiskey
to appeal to the more discerning quality end of the market who are looking for a stronger delivery
of flavor and smell particularly the flavor um it does say in the label beside the 46
high strength and it should really see higher strength because our when we think of a high
strength whiskey we're really looking at 50 volume and above but i'm just quibbling on little details
let's move on to nosing and tasting this whiskey first impressions in the nose
pleasant cereal barley sugar grainy touchy vanilla
soft in fact they help you out in the label by describing tommen tool under the name
the gentle drum it is gentle it's understated it's the style of the malt first taste
a bit sharp plenty of flavor
a good delivery of development slightly gingery vanilla infused absolutely these fresh bourbon
casks they're really showing um and a fairly it's like in a reasonable but soft finish um so you've
got a big punch in the arrival slightly acidic quite citrusy grain citrusy but first taste is
is perfectly decent certainly it's carrying more punch than any version bottled at 40 percent
i am of course going to add water because water works it works for me and it works
for some of you if it doesn't work for you don't add it full teaspoon five milliliters
gently as we go you will really benefit from letting this sit for about 20 minutes because
initially when you come back to tasting it after adding water it's very similar but slightly dilute
from when you tasted it before adding water however gradually over time
a bit more complexity seems to be coming out of the spirit itself i mean this is 14 years old
so it's had a good cask engagement to deliver a little bit of spirity youthfulness but certainly
not an old whiskey far from it but it's got that kind of roundedness in you can see there's
a positive quite assertive cask interaction so a very good age actually for tom and two
as a 10 year old it's just kind of too feisty and young but at 14
from my previous experiences with tom and two this is a moment where it's really finding its feet
and i reckon that this is why they bottled it as a 14 year old rather than a 12 year old because the
folk at the distillery know the character of their malt and they respond accordingly so it's all good
the nose remains soft no pit in here no big heavy savory notes no assertive sensations
dominating in any way whether it be sweet sour salt bitter or savory certainly no savory about it
a little bit of gingeriness and slightly pickle note um coming through in the development but
i'm kind of getting ahead of myself i should be tasting it first before i tell you this i have had
a few drums but you will notice realistically not that many it doesn't take many many to be honest
with some mocks to get to know them the simpler the malt the quicker you get to discover it
flavor well start with the nose
lighter fresh fruit slightly happily banana biscuity cereal honeyed lovely taste
much more composed in the arrival beautiful grainy sweet and sour note
better than i was expecting because we all get prejudiced over time there's those that
are honest about it in those and those that just deny it so i'm being honest about it smell and
taste are very emotive sensations and experiences smell and taste go straight to the non-objective
areas of the brain for analysis and we tend to have quite a lot of emotional attachments
to certain smell and tastes so when we come across something which is a little bit different
we can be a bit too judgmental i occasionally do that and so do you don't deny it um taste again
nice cereal honeyed biscuity sweet and sour touch of bitter in the development gingery
a nice under note of vanilla muscovado there slight some spearmint a light mint a mild mint
note going into the finish again slightly gingery powdered ginger um a hint of rose
water in the finish as well which i wasn't expecting and because we don't have enough
time in this review i'm just going to cut to the quick and tell you that in 15 minutes time
you're going to notice some lovely little fresh fruit notes start to appear in the glass
they're a surprise you think that you've had the event
that because you've been patient and persevered you're being rewarded with that little bit extra
that is completely indiscernible when you first approach this whiskey thoroughly enjoyable for
that reason but i've got i can't get too heavy in the malt marks so what am i going to give this
i've challenged myself a very very rarely by tommen tool this is possibly the first one
i've ever reviewed i should have checked before i started recording this video
but i haven't because i'm too busy with this but there you go i'm just telling you as it is and um
i think this is quite a worthy
83 no no that's too that's too harsh
84. 84 out of 100 and that is in my opinion an integrity malt mark
i think this is an integrity delivery of a soft whiskey which is giving it substance and body
and delivery and it makes it the recommended timing tool if you're going to go out
and buy one thank you for watching if you want to pop back again i shall be presenting ralphie
review 917 extras in which i will be introducing you to a style of whiskey you have never
seen before unless you've been in the supermarket in the uk oh you're intrigued now you really want
to know well you're gonna have to wait mock mates because that video will be along just shortly bye