Cask strength release that yielded 100 bottles
Details
500ml: 63.4%alc
Country: Australia
Region: Jingera, NSW
Cask type: Vintage Port
Cask No: 21
Bottler: Riverbourne Distillery
Distilled:28th of August 2016
Released: 30th of August 2019
This latest creation from Martin Pye, Master Distiller at the Riverbourne distillery is called ‘Enigma’ – a name he only uses to describe his exceptional cask releases. Aged in old 60L Port barrel, its bottled at a cask strength of 63.4% alc with a limited run of only 100 bottles.
Martin has given us immediate access to this expression after he showcased it at the 2019 Sydney Whisky Fair for the very first time. The response was huge with the Enigma selling out at the Fair within 3 sessions. As Martin comments….. “It’s like angels dancing on your tongue.”
NOSE: Full bodied with added complexity that belies its years. Lots of dark fruits and mint give way to subtle plumes of smoke.
PALATE: Viscous and buttery with sticky dates and manuka honey followed by peat that balances the palate perfectly.
FINISH: Medium, with more dark fruits that compliment a warming, smoky finish.
John Atkins (verified owner) –
An enigma is something mysterious or difficult to understand. This whiskey is well named.
It weighs in at a decent 63.4 % ABV, but its incredibly smooth. You’d expect to have to add water, but it’s character shines through “as it comes”. There’s a reason why they’ve come up with a very specific ABV to the decimal point…..it works.
You think there’s smoke…then it wafts away, like it was never there.
Enigma.
Not big sherry, not peaty, sweet but not sweet. It’s hard to pin down. But why even bother? – To me how a whiskey makes you feel is more important than the nose or the finish or some such scratch and sniff cliche’.
To say it’s an enigma doesn’t mean it doesn’t have personality. You can tell it has a point of view. Made by one man. Not a committee. One man with a singular vision. Martin Pye, Master Distiller says, “It’s like angels dancing on your tongue.” Well that doesn’t really clears things up. Still a puzzle.
How many angels can dance on the tip of your tongue? It’s an age old question. (As far back as the mid 1200’s Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica was surmising that since angels are non-corporeal and do not occupy space, an infinite number of them could be present at a single point in space simultaneously.) But to answer Martin’s mystery, it is more than mere sophistry. I now have the answer to the Enigma. It’s in the numbers.
I told you..they come up with the number 63.4 ABV for a reason.
ABV:
Angelus: angels
Vibo : to drink, quaff.
Voluptas : pleasure.
That’s 63.4 angels dancing on the tip of you tongue. Enigma? Not really – mystery solved.
One thing that’s not a puzzle…I’ll be back to try more Riverbourne.