Amrut tasting, Edinburgh

[jmrl]

Thursday 09.02.12 Amrut Indian single malt £18/15* at The Tolbooth 7.30pm

Ashok will be in effect....

Two continents Part two 50%

Cask strength 61.8%

46%

Fusion 50%

peated cask strength

a mystery dram - even I don't know what it is

[jmrl]

Just to confirm the line up is as said (that might sound redundant but I was a bit unsure of proceedings) and also there will be £5 off any bottle featured when purchased in Cadenheads Whisky Shop, sorry to sound tricky but this is 'subject to availabilty': i.e. nobody has the cask strength peated and nobody is yet to stock the mystery dram.

[Vest]

.. and what are the results from the honorable jury?

[jmrl]

From (hazy) memory:-

We started with the current 46%, most were impressed while some complained of off notes although no serious problems, one person struggled to find a true character. For me this was a classic Amrut easily up to snuff.

To compare the with the first dram the second (mystery) dram was a bottle from batch two when the brand was first released, 40% and artificially coloured, interestingly a few preferred this to the current standard, most found it less confident and not too soundly structured.

Next we had Two Continents batch 2 50%, part matured in India, maturation completed in Europe. For my money an excellent version and my favourite Amrut to date. Very easy drinking, plenty distillery character but nicely subtle compared to the usual big swagger. Whisky Advocate magazine's very recently warded this their World whisky of the year, seconded

Next was the cask strength edition - so back to the bolder style, we've tried this one before to mostly great effect, the high strength goes a long was and it went down pretty well.

Fusion followed this - 25% peated Scottish barley, 75% unpeated Indian barley. A marvellous effect with complexity way beyond it's years although multilply time by four when comparing Scottish and Indian maturation periods. Jim Murray's 3rd best whisky 2010, a winner with the Malt Maniacs too, not arguments from me.

Finally the now off-market cask strength peated expression: a real winner, very classy and eminantly peated, why should we expect poor quality from Indian malt? Most 'whisky' made in India is molasses based but this is the real deal. A classic.

I'll post the full results of the attendee's feed-back opinions once I've compiled the report, I expect some less than flattering comments as I was surprised at the level of dis-satisfaction and lack of people being impressed although the opinion was generally split between the converts and sceptics.

Thanks Ashok

[Vest]

Thankyou very much, Ashok. I've had the 46 plus an older cask strengh. They were both very good. And recently I bought the Fusion - I think I'll have some now