Shortcross Rye & Malt
Official Bottling April 2022 | 46% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
Vanilla Spice Spice Baby
It’s the Difficult Second Album From Shortcross…or is it?
Nestled in Rademon Estate near Crossgar in County Down is Rademon Estate Distillery. Since 2014, the distillery has been synonymous with its Shortcross Gin – Crossgar, which means 'the short cross' in Irish, giving the inspiration for the branding. Beginning in 2015, though, David and Fiona have been quietly going about whiskey production too, and in late 2021 they released their inaugural single malt.
The reaction to that release has been a little…well, let's say mixed. On the one hand, it has been very well received industry-wise, winning 'Best New Irish Whiskey' at the 2021 Irish Whiskey Awards. But then, I don’t have a particularly high regard for whisky awards.
On the other hand, it was fair to say that Irish whiskey fans, especially on the Facebook forums, were slightly less than gracious about it, and it all boiled down to one reason: price!
You see, Rademon Estate Distillery had the audacity (I say, tongue in cheek) to ask £300 for their first release, a 5-year-old single malt. Cue keyboard warrior uproar… The overarching feeling was that said whiskey fans would just pass on this offering and look to spend their money elsewhere.
“You pay to enter these competitions (in inverted commas) to increase your brand visibility and increase sales. No mention of actually judging whether the product is in any way decent or not.”
Although I didn’t comment on the aforementioned Facebook thread, I was one of those who felt that £300 was a little rich for me, especially for a 5-year-old single malt bottled at 46% ABV, albeit with a fancy box and a couple of glasses. However, I had a little sympathy with the guys at Shortcross, and I could see why they pitched their inaugural release at this rather lofty price bracket. It comes down to consumer behaviour.
Dingle inadvertently started the ball rolling. Their first-release malts and pot still whiskies were priced at around £100 for the 46% ABV versions and £150 for the cask-strength releases (of roughly 3-year-old whiskey). Notwithstanding these prices, most Irish whiskey fans were cock-a-hoop at the release of whiskey from the first independent distillery in Ireland since Cooley’s started up in the late 1980s. Also, we tried to console ourselves with the fact that Dingle’s output was tiny, about two casks a day, and so prices were bound to be high initially.
Waterford (I’m sorry for swearing so early into this review but I must mention Waterford to help continue contextualising the piece) continued this new standard of pricing, charging £150 for their Pilgrimage expression, a 3-year-old single malt limited to 1,000 retail bottles, bottled at 50% ABV and all sold out in a flash. So that’s £50 per year of maturation. So I guess Shortcross did overprice a little, they’ve charged £60 per year of maturation….but maybe that’s inflation for you?
In Kilkenny, we have Ballykeefe Distillery, a grain-to-glass, totally independent distillery who also have similarly lofty pricing. Their first-release single malt and pot stills (again between 3 & 4 years old and 46% ABV in a fancy box – but without glasses) were sold at €195. The malt is still available, but the pot still is sold out. Their cask-strength versions of these inaugural releases were offered at €450 – with glasses this time – and amazingly both are sold out! The strange thing about this is, I don’t even remember any social media backlash against Ballykeefe Distillery for this pricing strategy.
Connacht Whiskey also sold their inaugural-release single malt, which was marketed as a ‘collector’s edition’, for €150. All sold out.
So to round up, the first reason for my mild sympathy with Shortcross is that, as consumers in Ireland, we have been quite willing to pay over the odds for inaugural releases, especially with an eye on potential future value. It is perhaps not surprising then that I have seen few of these inaugural releases, from any of the distilleries, actually opened and (hopefully) enjoyed.
The second reason for my mild sympathy is consumer behaviour on secondary markets. Those initial Dingle releases were hoovered up and, especially on auctions and Facebooks groups, made easily 3 to 4 times their RRP. For instance, the Waterford Pilgrimage made north of €2,000 at auctions in the early frenzy to get a bottle. While this may have been a wallet-friendly tonic for those selling the bottles, it must have been slightly galling for those who actually made the product – they are seeing none of the extra profit.
I get the argument that, once you as a consumer have a bought any product – be it sneakers, a car or whiskey – it then becomes your gift to use or dispose of as you see fit. I also get that we cannot prejudge every individual's decision to immediately move on a sought-after bottle: there could be any number of reasons going on in the background that necessitate their actions. But let's also not be so naive as to ignore that some people are doing this primarily as a job, a side hustle, whatever you want to call it. It’s a source of income first and foremost – and not for the love of whiskey.
I believe that it is this line of reasoning that encouraged Shortcross to set the £300 price on their inaugural release. They simply wanted to maximise their share of what might be achieved on the secondary market. They may also have wanted to discourage immediate flipping of the product. I can only surmise these lines of reasoning, as I haven’t asked anyone from Shortcross directly. Knowing David [Boyd-Armstrong, distillery co-founder], though, I imagine he very much wanted people to open and try the whiskey even with the high entry fee.
The pricing may have backfired, though, as the inaugural release is still available for sale. However, with the world as it is now, I’m starting to detect that taste for high-cost, limited bottles is starting to wane as consumers become more circumspect about their spending.
This is where the good old-fashioned bottle split comes into play, as practiced for instance by the TAIBS lads on Instagram (that’s Taps Aff International Bottle Split to you and me). Maybe it’s time we see this become common again, as it allows us the chance at least to try, at a relatively affordable price, those bottles we’d never stump up for as an individual. Maybe I’ll even do a bottle split on the Shortcross inaugural release…shall I gauge the interest?
Maybe it’s time we see [the bottle split] become common again, as it allows us the chance at least to try, at a relatively affordable price, those bottles we’d never stump up for as an individual.
Happily, the subsequent releases from all the above distilleries have been a lot more easy to accept. Dingle’s Core single malt now retails at £50, Waterford are usually always available at auction for less than the £70 RRP, Ballykeefe’s single malt and pot still releases retail at €60, and Connacht’s Batch 1 single malt is £60.
Shortcross have followed this trend too, with their second release, the Rye and Malt, costing £65. Now one thing I am going to get picky about with this release is the relative lack of information on it, anywhere. In sharp contrast, Shortcross positively bombard you with information about the inaugural release on their website, listing fermentation times, yeast types and other nerdy stuff. Come on, Shortcross, show the same confident transparency on ALL your releases, not just the first one!
Review
So what do we know about the Rye and Malt bar the cereal ingredients? Well it’s a 50/50 rye/malt mashbill, it’s matured in a combination of virgin chinkapin oak and ex-bourbon barrels, it’s around 5 years old, it’s 46% ABV, and it’s non-chill-filtered and natural colour. I bought this via the online distillery shop and paid the £65 entry fee.
Shortcross Rye & Malt 2022, 46% ABV
£65 at the distillery and online
Nose
Immediately it's very herbal: juniper berries, bay leaves, nigella seeds and lemon balm. Then some shoe polish and cracked black pepper. Then comes the sweetness: caramel, vanilla, stewed apples and orange segments. Clove, some unripe stone fruit and rye bread.
Palate
Another spice kick on arrival – the chinkapin oak certainly making itself known. Cinnamon, clove, black pepper and sawn oak initially. Then come butterscotch, vanilla cream, boozy flambéed orange, black liquorice and mocha. The finish is short to medium in length but with loads of warming spices, citrus peel and mocha motes.
The Dregs
What do you get when you mate a high-rye mashbill with virgin oak? A spice baby! …And that’s exactly what we have here. Both on the nose and on the palate, this is a very herbal and spice-forward whiskey.
Method and Madness also have a Rye and Malt release out at present with a 60/40 rye/malt mashbill of a similar age. The difference being that it’s fully matured in ex-bourbon barrels, and as such I think it lets the distillate shine through a little better.
With the Shortcross release, I do feel that the virgin chinkapin oak has had a big impact, so it’s a little hard to decipher what the distillate is delivering. It would have been nice for me to see how this fared in an all-bourbon maturation, too. Saying that, this is a pretty bold and bombastic dram. If that’s the type of dram that floats your boat, this is well worth looking out.
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. AG
-
Dramface is free.
Its fierce independence and community-focused content is funded by that same community. We don’t do ads, sponsorships or paid-for content. If you like what we do you can support us by becoming a Dramface member for the price of a magazine.
However, if you’ve found a particular article valuable, you also have the option to make a direct donation to the writer, here: buy me a dram - you’d make their day. Thank you.
For more on Dramface and our funding read our about page here.
