Eagle Rare 10yo
Kentucky Straight Bourbon | 45% ABV
Score: 5/10
Average. In a good way.
TL;DR
A simple bourbon for social sipping
Heat Hiatus
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m back. I was all whiskied out.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t about to quit Dramface - or whisky as a whole. I didn’t lose my passion or find myself in a slump. None of that. I was enjoying my annual whisky - and general alcohol - timeout.
You see, every year I make myself go pretty much without whisky and alcohol for at least a full month. It is a concept I was made aware of through YouTube a few years ago. I have adopted the habit and stick to it quite rigorously.
Quite rigorously… Can you be quite rigorous? Doesn’t that just mean not really rigorous? Isn’t that the same as saying you are consistent, just not all of the time? English is my second language after all. I digress.
There are two reasons for this “off-season” and they’re both equally valid. One is that it’s always a good idea to take stock when it comes to our whisky consumption, because this passionate hunt for smells and flavours comes at a cost.
Alcohol is bad for you. We know this of course, and we can bend and nuance our way through defending our enjoyment of it, but that doesn’t change the fact that, to our bodies and brains, it is a poison. Why yes, I am indeed fun at parties. Why do you ask?
To me the word “drinker”, which in essence is what I classify as being a whisky enthusiast, leaves a bit of a rank aftertaste in my mouth. It’s a word that doesn’t have a positive ring to it, does it? “He’s a drinker. Someone who drinks…(read: too much).”
My awareness of the fact that my hobby is, on the absolute basis, bad for my physical wellbeing is never far away. It’s the main reason why my consumption is as limited as I’ve admitted to in previous writings.
There have also been cases of alcohol abuse as a habit in my immediate surroundings. Now, I’m certain this will never be my reality as my relationship with alcohol is about as far away from that as could be, but it does bring an extra layer of mindfulness to my enjoyment.
All this to say that I take this break first and foremost to check in with myself and see if it hasn’t become a habit. One of those things you start to routinely do just because you’re used to doing so, sometimes without thought. That’s not why I’m here, after all.
It’s not just me who’s doing this by the way. I take at least a full month. Some do a dry week every quarter. And others might have a certain number of dry nights they aim for per week, month, or year. Whatever works for you.
Reason number two for the break is less about health and more about quality of enjoyment.
When our brain gets used to things, it tends to dial them out. I used to lie awake, unable to fall asleep, ever aware of the tiny mechanism in my automatic wrist watch mechanically ticking away on my nightstand, amplified by being laid flat on the wooden surface. Now I only hear it when I listen intently. This works for our noses and our palates as well. They get used to smells, flavours, and sensations. Anyone who, like me, has a love for heavily peated whiskies but can often be blind to the peat and smoke will know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll probably also know how to retrieve the ability to pick up on smoke and peat: you take a big break from peated whiskies.
Peat and smoke however are just examples. This goes for other smells, flavours and nuances thereof, and textures as well. My month away from Scotch recalibrates my palate like nothing else does and it means that when I come back I feel like my sense of smell and taste is refreshed, awake, and firing on all cylinders. It really works.
This year, I decided to extend the off-season somewhat. Not on purpose, but due to circumstance. We’ve just experienced two heatwaves here in The Netherlands. The second one in mid-July felt like a gentle glow compared to the absolutely scorching temperatures we’d experienced a week or two earlier. Much like Ainsley described in his recent Elevenses review, we too suffered and groaned under the boiling temperatures of the ‘heat dome’ that slowly made its way across Europe.
What does that have to do with extending my whisky off season? Well, I live in an old monastery in which insulation is more of a suggestion than an actual part of its construction. Whatever insulation there is has one purpose: to retain heat.
This means that when the temperatures start climbing to 30°C or higher, it’ll take about two to three days until the thermostat inside reaches 30°C as well. From then on it’ll keep up with the ever rising outside temperatures. And once all that heat is in the walls and floors, it’ll stay there for way longer than you’d think.
In those temperatures the mere thought of a glass of whisky makes me recoil. I’ve tried it in the past, but all I get from a glass is a slap in the face from the billowing alcohol vapours, due to the accelerated evaporation. For me, there’s no enjoyment to be had.
And so Scotch has had to take a backseat for a good month and a half.
Every now and then though, I’d sit outside in the garden late at night in the cooler air. Sometimes with my best pal after an evening’s work. And if there was a slight breeze to keep the mosquitos at bay, we could enjoy a glass of bourbon.
I don’t exactly know why, but bourbon seems to work better than Scotch for me when the temperatures are high. Its simpler nature and profile seems to lend itself better to higher temperature sipping and, to me at least, that means I’ll also add some ice to it every now and then when the mood strikes me. The same goes for my good friend, who usually also enjoys his whiskies either neat or with a drop of water.
I’m not an all-out bourbon drinker and my experiences with bourbon have been mixed, but I will almost always have a bottle open on the shelf for when the mood takes hold.
Review
Eagle Rare 10yo, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 45% ABV
€43 (£36) paid and wide availability
Around these parts you don’t come across that many age-stated bourbons, so it’s actually nice to see for those of us who are used to Scotch - and can therefore sometimes attach quite some value to an age statement. It’s one of the reasons why my eyes were drawn to this bottle in the first place.
A quick glance around the rest of the bottle, searching for details, sees me pulling a slightly bemused face at the intro of the marketing bilge on the back label. The current state of the… well States, makes it hard to read the words and not see images of the orange peril floating across the mind’s eye.
You’ll notice from my photos that the inside of the back label is printed black, so that whenever the bottle is photographed from the front, like for example when you see it presented on a website, the whisky seems an awful lot darker than it actually is.
Whether that is clever or misleading packaging design probably depends on what your day job entails. I know which one it is in my mind.
Score: 5/10
Average. In a good way.
TL;DR
A simple bourbon for social sipping
Nose
Cherry confectionery. Freshly burnt top of a crème brulée. Warm glue. Paraffin lamp. A bit of gingerbread. There’s a most intriguing off-note to this. Everytime I nose it, somewhere along the journey from first nosing to empty glass it pops up: sewage on a hot day.
You know how sometimes, in periods of drought and high temperatures, the smell of the sewers can come up to meet you from a drain when you’re walking on the pavement? It’s that. Warm sewage. Now I can already hear the jokes in the comment section. “I think it might just be your house then.”, “Must be your upper lip.”, “Nosing with your shoes off, are you?” And finally; “When holding the Glencairn, how close are your fingernails to where your nose is?” Feel free to add your own creative options in the comment section.
It sounds like a revolting note to smell in your glass of whisky. The motherplonker of all off-notes. But actually it’s subtle, barely there and it doesn’t tend to hang around for long. It is notable though and worth mentioning. I have never before found it in a glass of whisky, or any other drink for that matter. Thankfully.
Palate
Initially sharper than you’d expect. Confectionary sweetness is here. So is the burnt sugar from the crème brulée. It very quickly plummets to a slightly tannic bitter oakiness, and not always in a flattering way. The thing that saves this from being a little forgettable to me is that every now and then it gives you the suggestion of affogato, although it leaves again before really getting there. It’s pleasant enough though.
The Dregs
It’s an alright bourbon. One which, like most other bourbons I’ve tried up until now, was casually fun to explore and taste, and good enough to be enjoyable while it lasted. A nice variation on my usual lane. It is however a simple thing and that makes for an experience I’m unlikely to return to in the future. It won’t be replaced. On the other hand it does make for an acceptable drink to pour in casual company or for people that are just getting into whisky and want to try a decent bourbon presented with an age statement and a higher ABV than the minimum 40%, which is always a good move.
My door will stay open for higher quality bourbon experiences, though I suspect I might have to go look in the cask strength section for those.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MM
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