In
recent weeks, or indeed months, I have found myself surrounded to a steadily
increasing degree by bottles of whisky and bourbon with all kinds of strange
additives – lime peel, lemon peel, honey and god knows what. I find it rather
strange. Not that anybody wants to add extra flavour to their tipple - if you
like it that way – drink it that way. But what I simply cannot understand is
why there is a market for these concoctions. I mean how lazy do you have to be,
if you are not capable of buying a lime, slicing it, and putting it in your
whisky should you so desire. Is it really necessary to buy a specially prepared
bottle of the stuff? And is it actually worth drinking?
So
off to the local supermarket I went (they had some special offers going), and
there I purchased two different bottles, and brought them home for a little try
and taste – with vastly different results I might add.
Ballantine’s Brasil
To
be fair they call it a spirit drink, but still… Apparently it’s made by
steeping Brazilian lime peel in Scotch whisky.
So
what do we make of that – well, at 35% it is rather weak, although the lime
peel is rather overpowering. The colour is nice, some sort of deep amber, but
the taste is two points beyond artificial. I don’t care where the lime peel
comes from the finished product still tastes like somebody have steeped
lime-flavoured wine-gums in window-cleaner. I tried adding some freshly
squeezed lime juice to see if that would straighten out the taste, but that
only made it worse. It would conceivably be drinkable if it had a bit more
bite, but it’s just boring. I also tried putting it in the fridge to see if the
cold could camouflage some of it, but no, that just made it cold… and boring. Finally
I tried the taste-killer of them all – Coca-Cola – but even that couldn’t hide
the artificialness of the lime peel. Don’t waste your time, money or taste-buds
on this.
Jim Beam Honey
This
is a bourbon take on ”How to add strange things to your booze and see what
happens”. And in this case the result is much better. It is still only 35%, but
this one has some resemblance of personality. There is a distinct honey-flowery
tinge if you let your nose get in close proximity to a glass of the stuff, but
also a sharp stab of alcohol in the background, and something sulphur-like,
almost as if someone has lit a match at the back of your nose. Rather weird,
but luckily also rather weak.
Being
Danish I couldn’t help but rejoice, when I had my first taste. It was almost
completely un-bourbon-like, but very much mead-like, and this of course was the
tipple of choice among the Vikings. You get a very juicy sense of honey, but
because of the clear and present alcohol, it is not overpowering in any way.
Rather nice actually, and even more so, if you serve it cold. Then it becomes a
strong almost caramel-like liqueur. Perfect with a good slab of cake and a cup
of coffee (not that I drink coffee, but trustworthy people have told me it is
so). Might be worth a try instead of the usual Cointreau and similar stuff.
