WW Review #10: Paul John Brilliance

Distillery: John Distilleries

Region: Goa, India

ABV: 46%

Age: NAS, 3-5 years. Bottle marked Batch #3 with Mfg Date of Nov-16.

Price: $45

Color: 1.1, Burnished

Nose (according to the wife): Fresh oak and slightly sweet.

Palate: Slightly sweet. The first note you get is caramel and then it’s followed by a strange oily-waxy-buttery not-quite-fresh orange note. This one confused me for a while but I eventually settled on orange marmalade (the type with a lot of the peel in it) on a buttery biscuit. Slightly sweet with a little bits of bitterness and butter tie it all together. The fresh wood spices make an appearance near the end.

Finish: Medium in length. A bit of fresh fruit, figs I think, is the main note here. The finish is super hot with lots of alcohol burn. A bit of water tempers it pretty nicely.

Conclusion: I didn’t expect a whole lot out of this but I was pleasantly surprised. The palate is well balanced and enjoyable, though it took a minute to figure out. It’s enjoyable to drink and being the base offering from Paul John, it does it’s job in peaking my interest in some of their other offerings. While they say they can age whisky to get the same flavor palate in a much shorter time period due to the weather differences, I can’t help but feel this guy could have used another few years in the barrel. The flavors might be there, the heat of a young whisky still shows itself a little too much.

Final Score: 77

World Whisky review #10, Indian Whisky Review #1, Whisky Network Review #45

Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection.
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.