Jameson Rarest Vintage

[kurtbenoit]

Looking for a bit of info on Jameson Rarest Vintage. A couple of websites is giving me different details. Was it first distilled in 2007? Is there a new version each year or was it a once off.

[JohnM]

It was first released in 2007, but I think there's a newer version, released last year. That's the release dates, rather than the distillation dates. There's whiskey of various ages in there.

some of it was aged in port casks, some of the whiskeys in it are over 20 yrs old and it's unchillfiltered and bottled at 46%ab.

According to John Hansel...

A 2009 vintage was released toward the end of the 2009 calendar year. I like the 2009 vintage even better! If anything, it’s richer and lusher than the 2007 vintage.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

The Vintage statement bit is quite confusing alright especially to people used to the scotch single malt template.

This is not a vintage bottling in the sence that it has an exact vintage year. Further 2007 is actually the year of bottling and not a vintage of distilling. What the vintage part refers to is that they have taken some of the best "vintage" whiskey from their warehouses to create this whiskey. The use of Vintage in this case is trying to express the quality of the whiskey used in the bottling. I have to agree with IDL on this ... and that is the premise of does it really matter how old the whiskey is if it is top notch but there is some old whiskeys in it.

It may all comes across a very much a marketing ploy but what cannot be denied is that this is by far the best whiskey under the Jameson label to come on to the market. So what you have here is a whiskey of the highest quality which is also marketed as such in the super premium category. Whether or not a person can deal with the price tag is a different story but for me at the US price this is a wonderful whiskey and worth the money however I do not think I could justify spending 400Euro on it as is the case with the price tag in Ireland and that would be me with any whiskey as €200 is usually my limit but that needs to be a special case.

This is definately one of my top 5 whiskies....

[DavidH]

What the vintage part refers to is that they have taken some of the best "vintage" whiskey from their warehouses to create this whiskey.

It's a pity they sprayed a load of marketing words all over the bottles: special, limited, rarest, reserve, signature, select... "Vintage" should have the meaning you say, and in this case it genuinely does, but it's lost in the confusion. "Gold" is a nice name, somehow easy to associate with virgin oak. "Jameson Gold", "Jameson Vintage", "Jameson Travel Retail" (OK, not that one)... wouldn't these be fine, memorable names on their own?

[IainB]

Maybe they could have called it "The Best Jameson Whiskey in the World.......Ever"

[JohnM]

They have reserved a lot of vintage stuff, but only the rarest of this do they put in their Rarest Vintage Reserve.

[kurtbenoit]

Thanks guys for the feedback. I know somebody working for Jameson who can get me 20% of purchases, I don't plan to drink this but to collect it and perhaps resell it in the future. I was considering buying this, but I may now go for the 2009 Midleton very rare as it seems to be in limited stock and perhaps be more collectable. That's unless "limited stock" is just a marketing ploy by the CWS,