Nikka Taketsuru: Whisk(e)y Wednesday presented by Calandro's Supermarket

Whisk(e)y Wednesday returns to Japan with Nikka Taketsuru, a whisky made in the Land of the Rising Sun in the Scotch style.  This whisky is an interesting one.  The comments from our panel were all pretty varied.  The nose reminded me of cherry cough syrup.  Eric got a similar medicinal aroma.  Oak came through on the taste with more cherry but very little smoke.  The wood flavor continued to hold up on the finish while thoughts of smoothness were inconsistent.  The whisky lacked balance as the few flavors it had left little to truly be desired.  We found it a little rough around the edges for sure.

Nikka Taketsuru 

Average Score 58.5

Whisk(e)y Wednesday is a blog post series on Bite and Booze sponsored by Calandro's Supermarket. Calandro's has one of Baton Rouge's best selections of bourbon, Scotch, and other whisk(e)ys as well as wine and craft beer. This WW feature was scored by Eric Ducote, Brenton Day, and Charles Pierce. Scores are marked for Nose, Taste, Finish, and Balance and Complexity using our own proprietary scoring system. Marks are then added and averaged, leaving us with a final score out of a 100 point scale. Our scale should be looked at on the full range of 0-100 rather than an academic range where 70 is passing and anything less is failing. A 50 should be considered a very mediocre whisk(e)y while anything below 20 is absolute horse piss and anything above 90 is rather extraordinary.