Posted by: Ted

On the twenty-second day of Christmas my true love gave to me… a glass of Dobson’s Distillery Empire 8 whiskey. More Victorian (as in the period, not the place) style funkiness from the New South Wales highlands ahoy! Dobson’s returns to the advent calendar, this time with a cask-strength creation. Stephen Dobson is not one to do things by halves or even multi-dimensional quarters, so the Empire 8 starts its life in stainless-steel vats with oak staves for four months before being transferred to a Shiraz cask for two years… then gets turfed into a Madeira casks for two years… aaannnddd then finally spending a couple of years in a Chardonnay cask! Phew!

The Empire 8 is triple-distilled in the Irish style (hence the whisk’e’y), which means that it is pretty smooth in spite of the cask-strengthing. The nose is soft and full of vanilla, caramel fudge and butter, while in comparison the mouth is narrow and sharp, with a definite note of vanilla topping and a hot, vapoury finish. It’s a really hard one to pick apart in terms of the multiple casking, which I think is modified by the effect of the triple-distillation and the strength. Another curious drop from the Dobson’s stable.

#whitepossumspirits