Phillips Union Whiskey

[mike1]

I got an e mail today with some drink receipe on it. One of the drinks called for Phillips Union Whiskey. I googled it up and find it it a new product that is a muxture of bourbon and canadian[they also make a flavored whiskey with either vanilla or cherry. ] Has anyone else heard of it or tasted it. it seels for about 29.00 a fifth.

[wadewood]

see this post (in non-whiskey section):

Phillips Union

[monte]

Hi,

This is by no means a detailed or accurate set of tasting notes, so I apologize in advance and welcome any other input. Still calibrating the tongue and nose!! Well, here goes:

I bought a 375ml of the 80 proof whiskey on a lark for $9.95. Poured into a Glencairn tasting glass, the nose is mostly alcohol with only a subtle hint of other flavors. After a minute or so, some vanilla comes out in the nose.

The initial taste is largely vanilla with very little spice or bite from the alcohol.
If you work at it, you can almost get a minty note, but it's really buried in all the vanilla. There's very little leather or oak or any other large tannic flavor suggesting that there's little old whiskey in this blend. The mouthfeel is pretty light with little vicosity or oilyness and also little chalkyness or granularity.

After a few more minutes, a brown sugar taste emerges, and perhaps a cinnamon or nutmeg taste also arrives, but it's pretty subtle and I could be mistaken. Slowly, the vanilla taste diminishes, and the overall complexity seems to reduce.

I tend to like whiskey at a higher proof, if only to have a more concentrated flavor and I find this whiskey to be too watery tasting at 80 proof, especially after it's sat in a glass for 5 minutes or so. I think it'd be a lot more interesting at 100 proof, but perhaps the nose might get too filled up with pure alcohol at that proof; at 80, the initial nose was still mostly alcohol, which is sort of sad compared to even some really cheap and young bourbons.

Because it's not overly complex, even when compared to some very inexpensive bourbons, I find it to be sort of boring and I wouldn't buy it again. I think it'll do well with the Jack and Coke crowd though, and maybe the huge vanilla thing will intrigue the inexperienced whiskey drinker.

Not my cuppa... and probably not suited to most folks here who want a good, multidimensional whiskey to sip neat. I'll try mixing with it and see how that goes...


Take care,

-monte-