2024 24 Days of Whisk(e)y - Day 1

All right, time to start this off. This year is a little different. While I do know the 24 bottles I'll be drinking this year, other than day 24, I do not know the order. I'm hopping on voice chat nightly to drink this with some friends who have the same set. We share nosing and tasting notes, then see what bottle we're drinking. I then take some more notes after knowing what the bottle is to see if there is anything more I find. This review is a combination of all those notes.

Tonight we're drinking Knappogue Castle 12 Year California Blend, bottled at 46% ABV. I like the regular 12 year from Knappogue Castle. This one is a blend of hand picked barrels, and it's bottled at 46% ABV instead of the 40% that the normal 12 year comes in at. This was purchased from Flaviar for $50.

On the nose, this one comes across with malt, apple, with orange cream sickle citrus as well. Some vanilla or maybe banana pudding in the back. The taste has the malt, citrus, orange along with some sweet apple. The finish has a nice warm spice along with some mellow dark sweetness like molasses. On the back end of the finish it lingers with some cool freshness too. 

With water, the nose is more flat and it brings out more malt on the taste. Probably best neat. Overall I like this one quite a bit. I'm going to rate this a 3.5/5.0 (leaning towards 3.75...). No idea if I like this one more than the regular 12 year as I do not have that one around currently and it's been a while since I had it. A nice solid start for the 24 days... cheers!