Dingle core range single malt

Core range. Some sweet words, aren’t they?

I love a good single cask whiskey. But do you know what I love more? Whiskeys that I can buy when I’m up to it, and if they sell out, there will be a new batch on the shelf next week.

Single casks and whiskey exhaustion

Since some time last year, I’ve had what I call a whiskey fatigue. We’re bombarded with all these frequent new whiskey releases, one more limited than the other. Marketers scream “ONLY (insert low number here) bottles available!”. Flippers go crazy, and I lose interest because trying to get my hands on a bottle is too annoying, no matter how fantastic the whiskey is.

Of course you don’t have to buy every bottle. But as a whiskey enthusiast I have a curious mind (and palate), and particularly so in a country that has gone from 4 to 39-ish working distilleries in 10 years. I want to taste what the new companies have to offer and, more than anything else, I want to support new Irish whiskey companies by buying their products if I can. But I don’t bother much about new whiskeys anymore, because I expect all of them to be sold out before I’ve even thought of whether to buy a bottle. Does this sound unnecessarily negative? Probably. It’s the result of too many limited edition releases in a short period of time. But sometimes I wonder if I just miss the larger releases because the single casks get so much more attention on social media. Who knows!

I’m aware that this must be a “childhood disease” in the Irish whiskey industry. Good and well aged casks are scarce, I get it, and I know I’m impatient. Single casks certainly has a place, and we are many who also welcome more cask strength bottlings to the Irish whiskey category. But I can’t wait to see more variety on the shelves, not only in the form of limited editions but also core range whiskeys from newer distilleries, that you can buy without competition. There’s nothing wrong with sourced whiskeys, most are very good and some of them are excellent, but I’m really impatient to see what whiskey from the new distilleries will be like.

Dingle core range single malt – yes, please!

It was refreshing to see Dingle distillery release their first core range single malt.

I had the privilege to be selected for the Talkdram tasting on Twitter some week ago, to sample the components of this whiskey, and also a fourth, secret, dram. We later purchased a bottle of the new single malt at our local Off Licence.

This whiskey consists in 6-year-old 39% malt whiskey matured in bourbon casks, and 61% matured in PX sherry casks. Let’s dig into it!

Nose

There’s a feel of campfire smoke here! I didn’t really expect that. Then there’s a variety of other aromas – hazelnut, dark chocolate with mint, salted almond, tobacco, wood dust, toffee biscuits and some orange.

Palate

There’s a nice balance and a slightly oily mouthfeel. The mint chocolate is back, mixed with almond and the toffee biscuits. There’s light spice of the nutmeg-y type, hazelnuts and hints of orange. Medium finish with some complexity – light spice, almonds/nuts, and mint in the background.

This is the most “grown up” Dingle whiskey I’ve tasted so far. It’s nicely balanced and full of pleasant flavours that are totally my cup of tea. Thanks, Dingle, this is a nice dram/taoscán that will help keep my whiskey fatigue snark at bay for a while.

You can probably buy this bottle in your local Off Licence, and if not, buy it directly from the distillery shop or look at Celtic whiskey shop or Irish malts. It is sold for the nice €55.