I love you multi mysterious Maltese megaliths and thank you to Willem Killian for the mention
introducing Ralphie Lee view 988 which is part of my world tour my summer season World whiskey tour
which is the first I'm doing um it's taken what 14 years I've been doing this Channel
and I've never had actually a a a globe trotting Whiskey Review before but it's a sign of the times
that the availability of whiskey is really coming from places that we never expected to see it from
even a few years ago and in fact I've recently bottled I've bottled no I've bought a bottle of
um Brazilian whiskey so I may introduce that to you at some point in the meantime we're
um going to Tasmania now when you're looking at a world Whiskey In other words a whiskey
which is non-scotch it's not bourbon it's a grain whiskey from anywhere in the world that has been
produced in a traditional style okay so it could be column Stills pot Stills but basically it looks
like whiskey it tastes like whiskey it's a little bit different but it's definitely whiskey that's
how you can tell and um it's a good idea when you're looking to buy a bottle of whiskey from
an exotic location that you go onto Google Maps and just look at the geographical location and how
green the landscape is uh and if you were to go to Australia you wouldn't find an awful lot of green
but if you go to Tasmania which is a triangular upended triangular shaped island just to the south
of Melbourne on the south coast of Australia in basically a cooler more Rin uh accessed
environment you'll find the the Green Landscape of Tasmania with fields that are clearly growing
crops and they also have a number of distilleries they've had a number of distilleries for quite a
few years however I've not been reviewing much in the way of Tasmanian Whiskey in My Channel because
it is seriously expensive and unfortunately after it first arrived in the British Market
um suddenly from being reasonable whiskey it was being totally overhyped
and the reason I'm now reviewing this particular Tasmanian whiskey is because
it's a decent whiskey actually at a decent price it's not leaning on too much pretentiousness
and trading on a reputation that it doesn't really have or earn in
terms of pricing this is heliers Road it's the pitted version it's bottled
at 46.2 percent and it says in the back of the label essential filtered
what's interesting about this and the reason I'm reviewing it here in Ralphie review 988 is because
it's different to Scotch peated whiskeys which is what I'm familiar with so I'm familiar with Pete
from around Scotland which is very wherever you go in Scotland you're not that far from the coast
particularly in the west side of Scotland you're more or less basically on the Atlantic so if
you're an Isla and this you get an Iola Distillery using Isla Pete you get this very salt Laden Briny
Maritime style of peat influence whereas if you're in the USA and you're using U.S or
Canadian Source Pete you get something which is a little bit more Smoky and toffee-ish and it's more
spicy style of Pete so I've been intrigued to see well what is the Tasmanian style of Pete I
mean for all they know for all I know they could be importing people from anywhere else in the
world despite the fact that it was probably available in Tasmania uh but I'm gonna take
it purely in face value I can't really dig too deep and and basically get forensic about this I
just want to assess in this review the whole experience on smell and taste now the smell
this is a young petered whiskey because it's quite hot on the nose it'll certainly
tone down once I add a little bit of water but before I do so I'm going to taste it
now the noise gingery as I said a little bit hot and toffish
in fact fudgy to taste
this is a very minty style of peat influence the phenolic is very identifiable it's very familiar
it's very clearly delivered in the palette so this isn't just a subtly pitted whiskey from Tasmania
this is a distinctly peated whiskey and I'm going to add a drop of water now because at the moment
with the soft style of The Malt now I'm adding one and a half teaspoon ears teaspoons here so that's
six milliliters so a fair amount of water in fact for many of you watching a lot of water but this
is what helps you access and get right into a deep dive in terms of the taste and the flavor
um and it's taken me a while to get to know this whiskey as you can see I've been doing quite a
bit of research around it it's a natural color I think it may be if the if if they have added
caramel to it I don't think there's really much at all I think look judging by the appearance
it's relatively natural and the reason I say that is because when distillers are adding
caramel they tend to overdo it most of the time particularly in Blended whiskeys so it becomes
too dark and orangey it comes two becomes too fake looking you know too much of a Tango tan
but in this instance with heliers Road it's not an issue so I've added the water it's opening
up now so a little bit of a confession here this is the second recording of This review
and when I posted the first recording to my patreon subscribers which is what I do
24-hour access they pointed out Ralphie you're telling your audience that Sullivan's Cove
whiskey and Lark whiskey are from New Zealand but they're actually Tasmanian distilleries
there we go abruper so I've re-recorded this entire review to make sure you get the facts
in my opinion uh interestingly thank you to demo our Damo for who's a pat pal for also
letting me know because he lives in Tasmania you see that's very handy because you can't beat local
knowledge and um it basically says there are now over 80 whiskey distilleries in Tasmania
80. that's phenomenal it's it's going to be really interesting to see where this goes because
I have tried Sullivan's corpse and I've tried Lark and there was a huge amount of
um fun fair Quinn Lark Distillery first appeared in the UK in fact at one point
the owner of Locke Distillery came over to look about and look into setting up a
distillery in Scotland or be part of setting up a distilled in Scotland but it never worked out but
that was a few years ago and my goodness how things have changed 80 distilleries
um I don't think that even half of these distillers can charge Sullivan Cove prices
which is a Distillery that started off really badly uh but then when they sorted out they are
still set up producing really good whiskey so we know the provenance of Whiskey from
Tasmania is really sound really good loads of Personality however one of the initial
problems we've had is the sheer outrageous prices of Tasmanian whiskey and also the
Habit that some Tasmanian distillers have had of bottling in 50 centiliter bottles instead of 70.
there we go and are we adding on from Willem Killian Who provided the more mention another
little comment on the patreon page unfortunately Australian whiskeys are extremely rare
because Australia is really set up for Brandy having a big wine industry and for rum where
sugarcane can grow in Beasley imported from other parts of the South Pacific but um
completely wrong right thank you to Willem Killian who's in South Africa right
and it's mentioning that Australian whiskeys are extremely rare and
virtually non-existent in South Africa however I think that will change oops
and it's RK thank you to RK who mentions that Sullivan's gov and Lark two of the most overrated
and overpriced whiskeys both from Tasmania Lark especially with its 500 milliliter bottles and
quote unquote not my opinion but the pat Powell's opinion by patreon supporter gimmicky releases
okay I'm not going to argue with that but just to conclude with Willem Willem is in South Africa
uh and there's in fact first access to Australian whiskey which is Starwood
whiskey is coming through the independent Scotch whiskey bottles so here's a reminder yet again
of how important independent bottlers are for regionality and for getting identity out in to
The Wider World Market so any Distillery can be it doesn't have to be any particular Distillery
or even a small group of distillers on in Tasmania group together or do it yourself
start an independent modeling company specifically for Tasmanian whiskey and it lets people taste
and try globally before they start to commit to official bottlings from distilleries we see this
happening with JJ Corey Butler's in Ireland doing a wonderful very valuable job anywhere
where you are having an independent bottler to take permutations and versions of your Regional
style out into the wider world is extremely helpful in my opinion for what it's worth
to Helios Road I've given it a good 10 minutes now really
um the nose settling down nicely young youthful but not harsh not Fierce taste
spicy aromatic cough mixture and fudgy phenolics so the pitiness is coming across differently from
what you find in Scotch whiskey it's much more cereal fudge soft toffee style of Pete and that
makes this interesting what we're going to give it in in the way of a malt mark
I think I'm going to give this 82 out of a hundred which is a good deed resp it's over 80. so that's
decent and it's a malt Mark it's a technically an Australian bookmark but I regard Tasmania as
its own specific geographical Global region I do not regard Tasmania as part of Australia in
terms of whiskey although it is part of Australia in terms of nationality or national affiliation
end of so thank you for watching my review and a big thank you to my patreon subscribers who
have corrected my major blooper allowing me time to completely record a fresh new video
to release tell you whiskey fans so I hope you appreciate it hope
you've enjoyed it if you have leave a comment click subscribe Etc see you soon