Whisky Party

St. George American Single Malt Whiskey

Visit their website, and you could be forgiven for thinking that St. George Spirits in Alameda, California is known entirely for crafting Eaux de Vie.  However the distillery offers a number of spirits, and even played a key role in bringing absinthe back to the America market.  If you are a regular on the cocktail circuit, you’ve probably seen their bottles of Absinthe Verte, the first American absinthe since 1912, featuring a cowbell-playing monkey on a label that looks like a dollar bill, on the shelf of your resident mixologist (curiously, the absinthe is totally absent from their website except for a small promotional poster on their blog).

Since 2000, St. George Distillery has also offered one of the more widely recognized – and easily found, in my experience – American single malt whiskeys on the market.  Sporting a dragon and coat of arms on its label, St. George single malt has a decidedly English look to it (indeed, the first time I saw it on a shelf, at Clancy’s in New Orleans, I thought it was the new St. George’s single malt from the English Whisky Company).  Don’t be fooled, though.  This very nice three year old American single malt, made with barley fermented by a local microbrewer, is a far cry from the typical spirit coming out of the U.K. Nor is it similar to the bourbons and ryes that define American whiskey.  Heavily influenced by the Eaux de Vie that seems to be the bread-and-butter of the distillery, this is a unique whiskey in a style all to itself.

ST. GEORGE SINGLE MALT AMERICAN WHISKEY

ABV: 43%

Color: Light gold with a tinge of green.

Nose: Strong berry fruits.  Refreshing.

Taste: The berry fruits – blueberry, raspberry, blackberry – are just as strong as on the nose. Some honey on the finish.  It’s a light and creamy whiskey that tastes more like a dessert whiskey than a hearty, warm-you-up whiskey.

Overall: It’s a very refreshing whiskey, if a little one-note.  It could use a bit more complexity, but you could easily down three or four glasses without batting and eye.  Above all, I would categorize this as a very “girly” whiskey, and also something of an introductory whiskey.  It’s a good dram to give a friend who wants to try scotch, but is scared off by the high ABVs or smoky peat flavors that are popular today.

Other Opinions:

• At Whisky Magazine, Dave Broom and the late Michael Jackson find it overwhelmingly fruity and more dessert wine than malt.
• American Hooch calls it crisp and refreshing.
• The New York Times did a write up on this bottle 10 years ago when it launched.
• After a lengthy musical discourse, Whisky Fun pits it head to head with its English counterpart.
• Chowhound likens it to a fruit brandy.

Made in California

Made in England

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