Editor’s Note: This whiskey was provided to us as a review sample by the party behind it. This in no way, per our editorial policies, influenced the final outcome of this review.
I don’t know a lot about wine, that isn’t really my background. I appreciate wine and have a small personal collection of reds aging in my home. However, I’ll be the first to admit my knowledge of the beverage is rather limited. This matters because more and more whiskey companies are finishing in wine casks. I know enough about wine to know each grape varietal has characteristics which are used to create very specific types of wines. You don’t use chardonnay grapes to make a malbec. My ignorance is increasingly obvious when a whiskey company uses a varietal I’ve never heard of, like Moscatel.
Moscatel is a wine made from the muscat grape and in the US refers to fortified wine and not just any wine made from these grapes. Typically, a sweeter grape with hints of aromatics, flowers, and citrus. They are produced in the Douro and Setubal regions of Portugal as well as Spain.
As I referenced in a previous review, American Single Malt is not yet a “legally” accepted style of whiskey. This is likely to change soon as the United States Federal Government is holding administrative hearings over accepting a definition. If the use of finishing casks is included, American Single Malt is completely open to creativity and interpretation.
Copperworks is a distilling company based out of Seattle, Washington. They won the 2018 distillery of the year and have amassed a following. Katie Wilkinson, public relations, for Copperworks Distilling describes the whiskey thusly, “if the pearlescent deep orange color and long legs left on the glass don’t grab your attention, the nose and what follows certainly will. The Moscatel finish is evidence at nosing: stone fruit, pie crust, creamsicle, and subtle florality. All of this follows onto the palate, balancing sweet and tart with the addition of white pepper and honeysuckle. Finishing long, with citrus, white pepper, and florality taking center stage.”
We have robust flavors of a single malt aged in a sweet wine cask for nearly a year. Wine and whiskey have an excellent track record of working together. The fruit and sugar flavors of wine play nicely with the robust grain of whiskey. Sometimes, however, there can be a mismatch and the profiles do not play nice together. Has Copperworks found the sweet spot with this varietal, or is the sweet wine for Spain going to overpower the delicate grain? With that, we turn to the glass.
Tasting Notes: Copperworks Moscatel Cask American Single Malt
Vital Stats: Pale malt aged three years, eight months in #3 char before aging 11 months in Moscatel cask producing 336 bottles. 50% abv. MSRP $89.99
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Appearance: Rich amber tones with slow thin legs.
Nose: Red grape, very fruity and floral. It is a little overwhelming to be honest, and it takes a minute to peer through the rich fruity notes to find the grains and whiskey. While exploring the flavors I get a hint of melted butter and barley. The alcohol is present which interferes with taking long sustained whiffs. It is all together pleasant but wine forward.
Taste: Start to finish, front to back, this tasted like Peach-O candy dipped in whiskey. It was sweet like white sugar, with peach essence and just a hint of tartness. Letting the sample open up I was able to get some nice woody notes that tie the sweetness together, but I was always brought back to Peach-O’s. The finish is very well done. It is smooth and just holds its flavor. We do escape the candy notes on the finish and hold with soft notes of fresh leather and malt. It dries your mouth out but not in an unsavory way.
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