Georgia Moon

Well - I tried Georgia Moon twice (because everyone deserves a second chance) but I agree with you @victor - the sourness is very dominant and the whole experience is near to bodily harm. I tasted a lot of new makes/ white dog and even if they usually share similar characteristics such as sharp/metallic overtones one can detect the pure grain basenotes - a good education for the own flavourmap.

Every time I'm in the States I'm always very curious about this, and now I'm glad I've never been quite curious enough to buy it. I've never had a new make though, so I wouldn't really know what it should be tasting like.

@michaelschout, it is interesting to sample new make, aka unaged, whiskies. I'd suggest a sample before investing in a bottle, though, so that you know what you are getting into. They are sour as a group, from the fermentation, though, some, such as the unaged oat whiskeys, actually have a sweetness within them which is usually stronger than the sour taste. Why? I do not know whether it is from incomplete fermentation, or something in the oats, but the unaged oat whiskeys tend to taste like sweetened breakfast oatmeal. For other unaged whiskies, expect the sour and hope that it is not so overpowering as to distract from finding and enjoying the grain flavours, which, together with the alcohol, are all the rest that is there to experience. The flavours that are there are often stark and sometimes shrill. Most people don't get drawn to these spirits as pleasure drinks. There are several that I can occasionally get into the mood to enjoy, but only once in awhile, and usually in a very modest dram: Balcones True Blue, Corsair Wry Moon, Low Gap, and Catoctin Creek Mosby's Spirit.

Funny enough Victor, I had a guy come into the shop just the other day searching for just this bottle because in his words it was "the best whisky I've ever tasted, that is nice and sweet and not harsh like all the other whiskies out there"

I have to be honest I just blinked as my wife just stood there and stared. Even more frightening he was will to pay something like a hundred dollars for a bottle of this....

@SquidgyAsh, someday, someone will give you a sample of Georgia Moon (because you will be smart enough not to buy a bottle of it yourself), and you will see just how funny what that guy said is!

He may have thrown his Georgia Moon into a glass of something very sweet and just confused in his mind where the flavours he was tasting were coming from.

@Victor, Hahaha I agree with you! I was just blown away that he kept talking about how he loved the whisky flavor in it because it was nice and sweet unlike nasty scotch and bourbon and I kept confirming that he was indeed talking about Georgia Moon via name, description, etc.

After he left my wife just looked at me and goes "I'd never want to eat at his house if that's his idea of yummy whisky"

Hahaha

But I indeed wouldn't mind trying it once just so I know how it tastes, but yeah never a bottle would I purchase.

@SquidgyAsh Hilarious story!

@Victor New make whiskies sound interesting enough, but honestly, trying them is at the bottom of a long list of other whiskies to try so it'll probably be a while before I get around to that. If I'm ever at a bar where they offer one, I definitely will have to give it a try though.

I have to say, I love the bottling of Georgia Moon.

@michaelschout, sure, sampling new make is a lower level whisky priority than is developing a core experience of the more mainstream products. Quite a few of them are quite interesting, but I really don't advise investing in whole bottles of them. You aren't likely to want to drink them that often, unless you regularly feature some of them in tasting programs for educational purposes. Even those educational program ones aren't likely to get sampled on Friday night dramming. Also, while something like Georgia Moon is usually very inexpensive to buy in the US (I shelled out all of about $ 10 for it), the products from most of the MANY new US artisanal distilleries are more often than not very pricey. As an example, Mosby's Spirit from nearby Catoctin Creek Distillery costs $ 44 here, while I have bought multiple bottles of Elijah Craig 18 yo bourbon for less money than that. Interestingly, the "drink local" movement seems to have some feet under it, since a lot of local and regional people are willing to pay these steep amounts for unaged spirit. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, particularly with additional macroscopic economic distress. Find some friends who have bottles of this kind of stuff and trade drams with them. That's the way to do it...