I comment on a music blog called Expert Witness, hosted by legendary rock critic Robert Christgau on MSN Music. We ended up talking about whiskey one evening. I mentioned the US tasting, which attracted a bit of interest. Here's the note I posted on that blog the two Charbays:
Charbay distilled IPA (Racer 5 from North Coast Brewery) 71.5%. Nose: champagne like (from the hops, presumably); Taste: fabulous, extremely unusual, someone called it "whiskey cask strength beer" which catches it, extremely intense but brilliant. Finish: died quickly but left a nice light aftertaste, and my tastebuds weren't dead despite the strength. [...]
Charbay distilled Stout (Big Bear stout) 71.5%. Nose: very like stout, roast barley. Taste: Magic - very concentrated stout, hops, unmalted barley, chocolate, coffee, cola. Finish, flipping glorious. I'm a stout drinker so this was right up my street but it was amazing that it was so well executed. Love love love it.
Another commenter on the blog, an Irishman living in California, kindly offered to obtain a bottle of one of the Charbays for me. (Very decent of him, especially since I've never met him.) The stout isn't commercially available as yet but the distilled IPA is now available as a "Hop Flavored Whiskey" (they may not be able to call it that in Europe). My Californian friend got a friend of his to bring it to Ireland, and I met my friend's brother during the week to take delivery of a bottle (I did a swap in payment). It's bottled at 49.5%, and is as good as I remember it. Many thanks to Fionnán for drawing our attention to it, and to my new friends for arranging delivery. I hope the Dublin based brother will come to the October tasting. I will upload photos of the bottle when I manage to import them.
Link to page on R5 Hop Flavored Whiskey from Charbay website: http://www.charbay.com/productinfo.aspx ... =WHISKR5A7
