Hyde No 3 The Aras Cask Single Grain

Type: Grain whiskey

Origin: Ireland 🇨🇮

ABV: 46%

Malt Mileage rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Reaction: 😐

Hyde Single Grain is made from corn and barley. It is a “single grain” Irish whiskey in the sense that it comes from one single undisclosed distillery in Ireland.

A “Coffey still” is used to produce the spirit that eventually becomes this whiskey.  A “Coffey still” is just another name for a continuous still or column still. The Irishman Aeneas Coffey patented the design for this still and many proud Irish folk refer to these types of stills as “Coffey stills” while moonshiners around the globe might know them as “bubble plate” stills. Put very simply, a column still is one long tube that is broken up into compartments. Each of these “compartments” can be packed with a “bubble plate” (or another type of packing) which heats up vapour and distills it. So, if you have a column still with three of these “compartments” for example, vapour is distilled three times as it goes up the long column still.

Once it is triple distilled, the spirit is matured for 6 years in charred first-fill ex-bourbon casks from Kentucky, USA.

The whiskey smells of toffee, brown sugar, vanilla, whipped cream, bananas and spice, especially anise. The whiskey is initially robust and jam-packed with thick syrupy honey, tinned pineapple, toffee, creme brulee and jagged spices, but as the flavours peel away what is left is a raw, rough and young grain whiskey. The finish is a tad vaporous and “hot” on the palate as the ethanol takes over.