Connemara Cask Strength: Whisk(e)y Wednesday presented by Calandro's Supermarket

Connemara Cask Strength Irish Whiskey

After serving as the Wildman of County Longford for a stint in 2006, my travels eventually brought me to Clifden, Ireland, near the lands of Connemara. On the west coast of the Emerald Isle I learned how to sail, met many other adventurers, and got some glimpses of the surrounding peat bogs. Connemara National Park lies just north of Clifden which all sits between Galway and Westport. The Connemara Cask Strength Peated Single Malt Irish Whiskey is more akin to a Scotch than traditional Irish elixirs. With peat smoked barley, this cask strength version is a variation of the regular Connemara Irish Whiskey that has been reviewed before on Bite and Booze. The cask strength version actually didn't fare quite so well in our scoring. The smoke is evident on the nose as the fires of Clifden billow out of the bottle. The taste is like eating burnt chicken from the inside out so the first part is normal but perhaps a little dry but the tail end tastes of charred leather and dried tobacco. The smoke is aggressive and masks all other flavors. It'll warm you up, and certainly has a place by a campfire while smoking a cigar on a cold evening, but other than that the lack of balance will get to you.

Connemara Cask Strength Peated Single Malt Irish Whiskey

Average Score 62.67

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, Irish, and other whisk(e)ys as well as wine and craft beer. This WW feature was scored by Jay Ducote, Eric Ducote, and Jeremy Spikes. 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.