Amrut releases three Single Cask Single Malt Whiskies
Three stunning new single malts are released this month by the innovative Indian distillery, Amrut Distilleries.
Carrying on in its much admired tradition of taking its single malt whisky and aging it in particular wood, Amrut Distilleries, the award-winning Bangalore whisky maker has created three single cask malts.
The malt whisky from the Bourbon and Sherry casks is made with Indian barley, while the spirit from the Port pipes is made from Scottish barley malted in peat.
Ashok Chokalingam, Amrut’s International Brand Ambassador says each is a very individual offering. “We select the casks we use carefully and then wait until the spirit reaches the perfect age and level of maturity before we bottle it.”
The results are impressive and already the trio has had rave reviews. Curt Robinson, founder of All Things Whisky, particularly likes the expression from the Bourbon cask for its simplicity that is “Amrut at its best”.
He highlights the beautifully balanced nose to its unmistakable Amrut palate of “warm melting Swiss chocolate, cinnamon-spiced cocoa, orange zest, mint and ginger”, which he found “stunningly vibrant and tangy on the tongue”.
Meanwhile, Gal Granov, founder and editor of Whisky Israel, enthuses about the peated expression from the Port pipes. Of the nose he says: “Oh my goodness. It’s so rich. So intense. Lovely peat above layers of sweet cherries soaked in wine. Lots of spice too. Mint. Plums. Mushrooms. Desert wine. Tannins galore. It’s huge.”
Gordon Homer, founder of the Spirit of India blog and a well established fan of Amrut thinks the port pipe matured Single Cask is the peatiest Amrut he has ever had.
Ashok added: “We are delighted with the initial reaction we have had to these Single Malts. As we waited for the elements to come into alignment, we thought they were going to be interesting, but it is only when the drinkers themselves give us their verdict that we can be truly happy.”
The three new Amrut Single Casks will only be available in Europe.
FURTHER INFO
Tasting notes – Amrut Single Cask
Gal Granov
Founder and editor, Whisky Israel
Amrut Single Cask, Port pipe, peated
Nose: Oh my goodness. It’s so rich. So intense. Lovely peat above layers of sweet cherries soaked in wine. Lots of spice too. Mint. Plums. Mushrooms. Desert wine. Tannins galore. It’s huge!!
Palate: wham. Bitter earthy peat. Tons of hot chilly and cinnamon. Tannins. Sweet and hot with smoke and lovely earthy peat. Marinated BBQ meat. Fig jam and sultanas. Rum soaked cake.
Finish: long. Ashy. Peaty. Sweet and spicy cinnamon and dates.
Superb.
90/100
Amrut Single Cask, Bourbon
Nose: coconut oil and vanilla with a bit of waxy notes too. Needs a bit of water to open up and then it reveals perfumed wood notes and more sugars.
Palate: lots of vanilla and fresh coconut, cereals and a hint of bergamot.
Finish: bitter sweet wood, crushed coffee beans.
Nice bourbon influence on steroids.
85/100
Amrut Single Cask, PX sherry
Nose: rich thick sugars with a clear sherry effect : nuts, grape peals and dried fruit salad in sweet nectar with quite a bit of vanilla and nutmeg.
Palate: sweet and hot at first with freshly ground peppercorns, hot cinnamon and dates and figs galore and a hint of tobacco leaves too.
Finish: cinnamon. Chilly. Dried figs and black pepper.
Lovely.
88/10
Curt Robinson
founder All Things Whisky, Canada
Amrut Single Cask, Bourbon
Score: 92/100
Nose: creamy chocolate. Almond and nutmeg. A little bit of orange. A fine dusting of cinnamon. Very high quality hardwood (like you’d smell in a great wood-working shop). Toasted marshmallow and vanilla. Quite creamy and “doughy”. Very much in the vein of the Herald or Two Continents. Beautifully balanced nose.
Palate: a huge delivery of pure Amrut familiarity. By now, this is an unmistakable profile. Warm melting Swiss chocolate. Cinnamon-spiced cocoa. Orange zest, mint and ginger. Nice blend of dried spices. Stunningly vibrant and tangy on the tongue.
Absolutely beautiful. I adore Amrut matured in ex-bourbon. You can see the purity of the exotic spirit shining through. While I am a sucker for all of Amrut’s innovative and quirky limited releases, this simplicity is Amrut at its best.
Amrut Single Cask, PX sherry
Score: 88/100
Nose: surprisingly, there is a little bit of tart red apple right up front. I’ve never picked that up on an Amrut before. Good strong cigar leaf and well-oiled leather. Sharp chocolate notes. It’s still easy to pick up malted barley here. A lot of spices, complexly married into a neat whole. Sort of reminds of an older Dalmore on the nose.
Palate: there is almost a meatiness here, met with malt. Coffee and over-roasted nuts. Dark toffee and even darker dried fruits. Burnt orange peelings. Very tannic. Very thick. Apple skins on the finish. This is heavy and oppressive sherry. Great late evening drink.
I’m not usually a water in whisky kinda guy, but this one swims very well. I’d actually recommend a few drops of water to cushion the more overt sherry notes and bring out more of those sublime sweet notes that PX is known for. A couple drops of water adds even more harmony and balance. A very different Amrut from what I’m used to. Neat to see another side.
Amrut Single Cask, Port pipe, peated
Score: 90/100
Nose: a lot of really lovely chocolate. A fair bit of peat that manages to stand rather independent of the smoke. Damp ash meets dark earthy soil (very cool nuances here!). Iodine and grape. Fresh orange juice. There’s a dark smokiness, but it’s very juicy, not dry. I can still pick up on that typical Amrut spicy cereal note even through all of the peat and port. Surprisingly creamy with a bit of a vanilla skeleton.
Palate: this is salty dram. One that has a great meaty/sour mix (in an absolutely pleasant tingling sensory way). I love it. Smoked fruits… weird but awesome. A lot of juicy grape and a bit of citrus. This carries a similar profile to the BenRiach Solstice (which I also loved, incidentally), but do note… the Solstice was a fifteen year old whisky… while this is only four!
This is single malt for the forward-thinking. It’s a little outside the norm, and definitely a whisky that will be hard to forget. Hopefully Amrut will consider adding something like this as a part of the core range, or at least something to be released in small batches in an ongoing basis.
Gordon Homer
Founder Spirit of India, Newcastle
Amrut Single Cask, Bourbon
A lovely golden colour in the glass. The nose is classic Amrut: malty, digestive biscuit, caramel toffee, chocolate (read millionaires’ shortbread for the last three) and of course liquorice. There’s also a hint of tropical fruits in the mix – delightful. This one fair dances across the palate, loads of oak spices playing with the malt and liquorice, a stunning mouthfeel. The finish is quite long again with spices and millionaires’ shortbread and an incredible chewiness. This one does not disappoint: Amrut at its finest.
Amrut Single Cask, Port pipe, peated
The odd one out of the three as it’s peated. Ruby red in colour. At first the peatiness is subdued by the fruitiness of the Port. A bag of mixed dark fruits, plums and blackberry jelly spring to mind, eventually there is a waft of peat and if you wait long enough (if you can) the glass is eventually filled to the brim with a smoky peatiness. The palate is REALLY peaty and not as fruit filled as I was expecting, there is fruit there (again of the dark variety) but I think this is the peatiest Amrut I’ve ever had. The finish is long and peaty with plum jam. The cask and the peated spirit really go well together in this one, both interplay well with each other and neither dominate, very good balance, another ace bottling.
Amrut Single Cask, PX sherry
The colour of Golden Syrup, the Amrut liquorice is the first thing that grabs your attention on the nose, then it intermixes with the dried fruits (raisins and sultanas), glace cherries and cake dough of your traditional Christmas cake. The palate at first is dark chocolate and glace cherries, then the liquorice and shortbread biscuit come through. There is also a hint of cherry liqueur. The finish is very dry and long, and almost liquid Christmas cake. Again incredible balance between the spirit and cask and another thoroughly enjoyable Amrut.
Amrut Distilleries background
Amrut Single Malt Whisky from India was launched officially in Glasgow in 2004. Since then its reputation has grown, with its range of innovative whiskies using Indian barley from the Punjab, distilled in the tropical garden city of Bangalore at 3,000ft above sea level. Amrut Distilleries has won many awards.
In The Whisky Bible 2010, leading whisky expert, Jim Murray awarded Amrut Fusion Single Malt Whisky the title of World’s Third Best Whisky. Murray said Fusion “has to be one of the great whiskies found anywhere in the world this year”. Admitting his No 3 choice could come as a surprise to some people, he said: “The fact that it is Indian? Irrelevant, from distillation to maturation this is a genius whisky from whichever continent.”
The awards for Fusion have continued, picking up several over the years, including Grand Master of World Whisky at The Spirits Business Awards in December 2011 and World Whisky of the Year at the Malt Advocate Whisky Awards February 2011.
The distillery itself has won honours, lifting the title of Distiller of the Year in the Icons of Whisky 2011 at awards organized by Whisky Magazine. The award was made to Amrut “for raising the profile of Indian whisky across the globe and its innovations in the production process”. The Rest of the World title meant the Bangalore distillery was also one of the four contenders for the Icons of Whisky Distiller of the Year title.
In 2012, Ashok Chokalingam, Amrut’s General Manager – International Operations, was named Whisky Ambassador of the Year at the Icons of Whisky. The judges praised the hard work of Ashok and Amrut Executive Director, Rick Jagdale, since launching Amrut Malt in 2004. “The gamble and all the legwork has paid off for Ashok and Rick, with Amrut establishing its credentials as a serious award winning whisky” they said.
Amrut’s Two Continents malt whisky was named Whisky Advocate’s New World Whisky of the Year in 2012. Two Continents is made from 100% Indian barley grown in Punjab and Rajasthan, then mashed, distilled and aged in Bangalore. It was then transferred to Europe where it was aged in ex-bourbon casks and then bottled. This gives it a “rich, complex, unique, and exciting oral explosion” according to Whisky Advocate.
Amrut Peated Malt Cask Strength Whisky won Silver and Amrut Single Malt Cask Strength Whisky Bronze at the International Wine & Spirit Competition in 2008.
Amrut is now sold widely in Europe (UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Spain), Canada, South Africa, Australia and the United States. It is also available in some Indian states.
Amrut’s oldest malt was released in the spring of 2013. Having kept the angels happy for eight years as it matured in Bangalore, there were only 144 bottles to release – appropriately it was named Greedy Angels.
NOTES to editors
High resolution images of the bottles are available – please email flaing@btinternet.com for copies.
Ashok Chokalingam, General Manager – International Operations, is available for interview on +44 (0) 7838 229914. ashok@amrutdistilleries.com
