When I was asked to review a couple of samples from Penelope,I was excited. I had been seeing these bottles all over social media and the first thing I was noticing was the eye-catchingdesign. The bottle is a beautiful elongated design that is reflected in the simple and elegant foiled letter ‘P’ on the label.
Just a quick foreword, I take a bit of a different approach when tasting a new whiskey and writing notes. I do this as blind as possible. I do not read up on the whiskey until I have captured my notes and had two different occasions to sit down and explore the whiskey in front of me.
Penelope Bourbon Four Grain 40%
This whiskey has a soft golden syrup color as I swirl the glass around. It is intriguing how golden the color is.
On the nose, there are those immediate soft hints of vanilla, straw, lemon, powdered sugar, and wax candy wrappers. When I let this sit and come back an hour later, some faint oak notes had developed.
The palate is very surprising, having a hot and light spice to it with a dry snap. Not as sweet as you would expect with the nose. There are hints of warm strawberries in straw with a gentle citrus note. There is a lovely dry leather and dusty finish to the whiskey. Very unexpected and intriguing.
I tried this whiskey also in a rocks glass and found that there were additional cereal notes and tart green apples. There was more of that corn sweetness when water was added to the whiskey. The finish retains that dry snap on the finish.
Now the facts about this whiskey. This is a blend of 3 bourbon mash bills comprised of 4 grains – corn (75%), wheat (15%), rye(7%), and malted barley (3%). This whiskey has been aged 2-3yrs with #4 char on the staves, #2 char on the heads.
Penelope Bourbon Barrel Strength 58.3%
The color on this whiskey has a burnt orange quality, which has me thinking I will be greeted by some strong bourbon flavours.
On the nose, there is that immediate push of caramel, butter, and an interesting underlying mustiness that makes me think oak barrels and leather – that worn leather of horse bridle. At the edge of the nose, there is a faint hint of menthol. With some time, I get additional sweet notes of caramel popcorn and honey glazed nuts.
The palate for this whiskey I do find to be hot and with a dry note to it. There are some sweet notes of candied fruit peels, citrus notes and some of that bitter of the pith from an orange. On the finish, the orange notes becomes more pronounced with a medium-dry finish.
When I tried this whiskey in a rocks glass, I found that the nose did indeed go sweeter, with tones of Roger’s syrup and warm toast. With a bit of water, there are some beautiful chewy leather notes and dark chocolate (92%) notes – that dry and bitter bite from the cacao.
Now the facts about this whiskey. This is a blend of 3 bourbon mash bills comprised of 4 grains – corn (76%), wheat (15%), rye (6%), and malted barley (3%). This whiskey has been aged 3-4yrs with #4 char on the staves, #2 char on the heads.
To catch-up on the idea behind these whiskies.
The back-story to this whiskey is rather interesting. Two friends who had a passion for drinking bourbon and taking that passionand translating their knowledge of the restaurant industry, supply chain management, tech, and e-commerce into a brand. Rather than building a distillery, they took the approach of working with established businesses to produce their product. This includes sourcing their distillate from MGP Inc. and working with Castle & Key on the bottling and blending of their end product. If you don’t know about MGP – do yourself a favor and go read up on them!
Seeing the craft distillery explosion happening in Canada currently, we are seeing this start with the building of distilleries,so having a company develop a brand and sourcing each stage of their product from other producers is intriguing. Without a doubt, it will be worth watching how this bourbon develops further.
Review written by Nichole Olenek @blackcatwhisky / https://blackcatwhisky.com
