Spirited News: The Best of 2021
I have been more than lucky to try a great number of excellent spirits over the last year. So, in good tradition and the spirit of a “the year in review” I am sharing the ten best liquors of 2021 with you. Yes, I know as always I am too late to make this a list of Christmas gift recommendations. However, there are a few stunning ones on here.
Outsider blended malt
We start with a blended malt from Douglas Laing’s Regional Malts series. The Gauldrons blends malts from the Campbeltown region of Scotland. Since there are only a few distilleries left, the region slightly lives in the shadows compared to the other Scottish regions. Nevertheless, the blended malt won me over completely with its combination of peat smoke, fruits and complex malt flavours. The whisky scored 4.5 lions in my detailed review.
Dark plum flavoured rye
The second spirit in the top ten of 2021 also is a whiskey. However, this one comes in the form of a rye whiskey from Virginia. The Reservoir Rye uses a mash-bill of 100 % rye and delivers what its dark colour suggests. I especially liked the almost sherry like fruitiness together with quite a bit of roasted flavours. With all of this, the rye scored high with 4.5 lions.
Sparkling wine for a change
Well, for this article I tried the other spirits again. Yet, I could not do that with this bottle of champagne, simply because we drank it… Nevertheless, I just needed to include the Benoit Marguet Shaman 16 Rosé, because it is just a perfect bottle of champagne. The Shaman 15 Zero Dosage already won us over completely, but the lavish red fruit flavours with notes of honey and oak took it all the way to a rating of 5 lions.
A cognac for a change
The last time a French brandy made it to the top ten list here on the blog was 2018. So, I am glad that with the Park Mizunara Cask a cognac made it to this year’s list. The combination of typical sweet and fruity cognac flavours with the unusual and spicy Mizunara cask is just too intriguing to resist. Apart from that, the 5-lion-rated cognac manages to keep its floral flavours of violets as well as lilac and almost reminded me of a Sauternes barrel finish.
Excellent Rhum
I do not know if I ever rated a rhum agricole with 5 lions. Yet, the Clement 10-Years scored this high. There still were some grassy rhum agricole notes, but the barrel character was very prominent in the aroma and taste. This takes the rhum in a slightly different direction with a lot of spices and dried fruits. However, the rhum also had a dominant vanilla note I very much enjoyed.
Finally, an eau de vie
This top ten of 2021 is rather unusual, with the half of it not being eau de vies. Still, at number five we have the Reisetbauer Rote Williams exclusively bottled for the ski club Arlberg. I actually did not review this eau de vie until now, but I could not hold back. While the regular Reisetbauer Williams eau de vie already is excellent, the one distilled from the red version of the pear is just exceptional! Apart from a clear pear flavour, you get a lot of vanilla with some other spices and just a touch of pear skins.
The king of eau de vies
Similar to 2020, the top ten is heavily influenced by Matthias Sievert and his Spiritus Rex eau de vies. The Cydonia takes place number four as his first one. This quince eau de vie has almost too much flavour with lavish notes of quinces, apples and honey. Boy, there is a lot of honey in the taste! On top of that, you can taste floral notes and also notes of quince jam. The only reason this did not make the top three, is that there are two even more delicate eau de vies from Matthias on the podium.
Super rare citrus fruits
As mentioned in the article on Matthias’ Sudachi eau de vie, I never had heard of those Japanese citrus fruits before. Now that I have tried his spirit, I am longing to taste a fresh one! The combination of notes reminiscent of bitter oranges, lime and lemon eau de vies with a prominent curry leave note is just brilliant. The more I think of it, I probably do not need to try the fresh fruit, because the eau de vie captures its essence perfectly.
Decadent raspberries
There are raspberry eau de vies out there, and then there is Matthias’ Hintperi. He distils the eau de vie from the mashed raspberries (Brand) without the addition of neutral grain alcohol (Geist). Pair this with the best quality wild raspberries you can get and you get THE raspberry eau de vie. Obviously, all this work and effort have their price. Without a question, this eau de vie is expensive, but it tastes as good as raspberry eau de vies can taste!
Best apricot eau de vie.
On the first place of my 2021 top ten list, you can find the Rochelt Wachauer Marille. I gave this apricot eau de vie as a Christmas present to myself, because if I had to chose, I would pick apricot eau de vies as my favourite eau de vie category. Rochelt uses full-ripe apricots already falling from the tree. Afterwards, the fruits are selected and washed by hand as well as mashed on-site. Rochelt uses natural occurring fermentation with all their eau de vies in 1000 l stainless steel tanks. The mash is distilled twice on pot-stills, with only the hearts of the first run being distilled again. All in all, the Rochelt Marille tastes just like apricot eau de vie should taste. It is packed with fresh apricot flavours, hints of apricot jam, slightly perfumed and slight whiffs of apricot yoghurt. Simply put, this is the best apricot eau de vie I ever tasted!
