DISTILLERY Lark

TYPE Single Malt

ALCOHOL 43%

REGION Tasmania

COLOR Amber

NOSE …feint whiff of freshly cut grass.  I’m sticking my whole nose in the tumbler to get it though.

PALATE Very peaty.  Aside from the smoke, there’s pepper, aniseed and citrus.

FINISH Rather potent aftetaste that leaves behind acidity and aniseed.

SCORE

60 out of 100

NOTES I’ve been wanting to try an Australian whisky since I first read about them in Michael Jackson’s whisky guide.  He reviewed a Baker’s Hill whisky and scored it in the mid-sixty range.  Trying out this cask-aged Lark, I’m giving it a similar score.  On paper, Tasmania has a comparable climate and environment to parts of Scotland which suggests that it would be an ideal part of the world to distill whisky.  While its a nice idea that some industrious Aussies have come up with a world beating whisky, it’s not quite the case here.  You can taste the relative immaturity of this whisky.  It’s a bit too overbearing for me.  It doesn’t have a particularly strong nose and while there are some interesting flavours in the palette, they are drowned out by the peatiness and the aniseed flavour.

I’m happy to have the bottle in my collection though and hopefully in the years to come, Australian distilleries continue to improve upon their craft and produce better and more refined drams.