Jameson

I figured I would get back to some basics after having sampled some excellent whiskies recently to kind of “reset.” Whenever I think of Irish whiskey, Jameson immediately comes to mind.

Sample is from a bottle that is 80% full and opened about a week. Neat in a glencairn. The code on the neck is JQ-058548. I assume that is a batch number?

Nose: Pleasant nose of cucumber, vanilla, lemon, and fruit hard candies. Gentle and soft. It’s amazing what proper glassware can do for a whiskey. I’ve had plenty of Jameson in my day but never from a proper glass until now.

Palate: Gentle palate, not a whole lot going on. Very clean and crisp almost like a clear liquor. Cucumber, melon, grass, lemon if you search hard enough. Not offensive in any way because there isn’t much there.

Finish: Floral, honey maybe? It was in a hurry I guess.

Overall: Either this was a good batch or glassware is making a positive difference. This is better than I remember Jameson being. Strength of flavour is lacking but that is to be expected from something triple distilled and 40%. If I was at a bar and had to pick between this, and a plain Jack Daniels or Jim Beam, I would pick Jameson every time. Probably because you don’t taste all that much and what is there is pleasant enough.

Colour: Light gold.

Nose: Fruity and sweet to start, just like sloe gin. Icing sugar and a touch of vanilla with a touch of fresh pine needles.

Palate: Sweet, vanilla and fruit but quickly being overtaken by peppery spice and oak giving a bitter taste.

Finish: Bitter, spicy with a touch of fruit.

Overall: Jameson - one of those whisky brands everyone recognises, but is it any good? The best comparison I can come up with is Jack Daniel's. I don't mean in terms of taste but in the fact that everyone recognises Jamesons and everyone has probably tried it, but it's not actually that impressive. Easy to drink - yes, but it lacks depth and I at least don't find it as smooth as people say.

That said it's cheap and for what you're paying it's not that bad. It's also great as a mixer and goes really well with ginger beer! I'm interested in trying more of what Jameson has to offer and seeing if their other whiskies are more interesting, particularly as they've recently expanded their range.

This is a whiskey I've tried on and off for the past few years. Once again it's a hit with my whisk(e)y friends who lean towards the Irish style when they want something in the economical category.

Smell: crisp, grain, fragrant, floral, green apples

Taste: vanilla, mixed unsalted nuts, green apple, creamy

Finish: short, gentle sherry

This is very smooth, too bland if you crave big flavours. The key here is the consistent themes from nose through to the finish. Goes down easy and good for when socialising with friends.

This whiskey is like a pair of black leather shoes: all events, all seasons

Like beer and wine tasting, one of the great things about whisky is that you can get a whisky with great heritage and an intimidating age statement, that just ain't that great. Likewise, you can get some budget whiskys, which will give you as much pleasure as higher end product. Jamesons standard bottling is often this, for me.

Colour is a rich golden to tawny amber.

Nose is delicious. Big fruity, huge whiff of tinned pineapple, tinned pear fruit, big dry sherry, flinty minerals. It's clean, crisp, dry and fruity. Lots of that clean crisp pot still character. Love it. When I breathe in from the open bottle there's also unmistakable musty, cocoa dust, chocolatey, but not getting it in the glass. Not multi-dimensional but I could sit sniffing this for some time. The pineapple with the subtle sherry is delightful.

Taste is more of that tinned pineapple, tinned pear, light sherry, pure clean lines of that pot still character, steely, minerals, giving way to some slight herbal and spice notes.

Finish is fairly short, but the fruit pineapple lingers with hints of sherry, fading into a subtle spice and herbal tingle on the tongue.

This is a good bottle. Clean lines, crisp, big fruit, hints of dry sherry, no trace of sulphur. I'm with big Jim Murray on this one.

I realized today that somehow I have never gotten around to reviewing that ol' standard Jameson (I've done the 18yo and the 2009 Rarest Vintage Reserve). Easily the best selling Irish whiskey in the world, the standard Jameson must be in every single bar in the world (that and Jack Daniel's). It's a blend of 50:50 pot still (a mash of malted and unmalted barley) and grain. Even though the label says "Bow Street Distillery, Dublin", it's actually distilled at Midleton in County Cork, the same distillery that produces Paddy, Powers, Redbreast, Green Spot and, of course, Midleton Very Rare.

I've had it at various times over the years and I have found it strangely inconsistent, especially given how loyal Jameson drinkers are. Sometimes very tasteless, other times too sulphured, I never seem to know if I'm going to like it or not.

The colour is a full gold. This noses very young, with canned pears, buttered burnt toast, green apple skins and Wheetabix. Linseed oil. Light toffee. With time, you get the faint hint of kippers (?) You definitely get the pot still and the sherry casks, but they are very light. Lots of cereal notes (more so with water), and lightly fruity, but there is a metallic undercurrent I don't particularly like.

On the palate it is very thin - but tasty. Definite pot-still crispness, rich barley, hint of sherry and more buttered toast (not burnt this time). Light honey with strawberries-and-cream. Grassy. You get a much better sense of oak here. Water somehow crisps things up even more. Straightforward and not terribly complex but very pleasant.

The finish is a little furry with some savoury herbs, cinnamon and pastry - but it seems a little off - perhaps a few sulphured casks? Anyway, this is pretty much how I remember Jameson from the last time - pleasant and very drinkable but there's always something a little off-putting that keeps me from drinking it regularly (but I could). Still, good to have around the house so you can pour some for your uncle without having to give him the good stuff. For some reason, Jim Murray is insane about this, scoring it a 95. Go figure. Mind you, I've always loved Jameson's other expressions. In fact, let's try another one in a moment...

This, along with Johnny Walker Red Label is one of the worlds most well known whiskies. It is a very standard, young whisky which is my first Irish experience.

• Nose: Smooth, wood citrus, barley malt, vanilla milk, creamy, peach stones a little bit of alcohol nip. With water little bit more savoury malt, very floury banana, cream and vanilla there but more savoury over all.

• Pallet: very creamy texture, vanilla again, lots of banana, malty notes and wood citrus, very similar to the nose, little bit of cinnamon lingering in the background there is a sour note which becomes more prominent. With water creamy arrival again then some nutmeg but still a lot of nip, vanilla ice cream, then a really metallic bitterness.

• Finish: sour note quite vegetal in its presentation, metallic zing develops and lasts. With water bitterness dominates, there are hints of lime pith but it’s pretty unpleasant more water doesn’t help

• Mark neat – 7, with water 6.5

Look, its not great. Won't put me off trying more Irish whisky but this stuff is, well a bit like Johnny Walker Red, not great.

This was the fancy stuff back in college. This and Crown Royal were the pinnacle of luxury when I was studying and supporting myself with a part-time shoe store gig. That was years ago, but I still have fond memories of Jameson. Let’s come back to it.

Nose: Pears, honey, vinegar, metal, barley, and a grainy scent that’s reminiscent of a Canadian whisky. All pretty high-pitched stuff. Maybe not the most enticing nose, but pleasant enough.

Palate: Mild arrival. This is dangerously smooth. Fruitier and sweeter than the nose suggested. Honey, lavender, apple cider, licorice, barley, grain, and some gentle baking spices.

Finish: Spices like nutmeg and cinnamon give a very gentle prickle. Red licorice, honey, apple cider, grain, and barley. There’s a soft oak note hiding just behind the barley. Very much a continuation of the palate. Short and easy.

It had been years since I’d tried Jameson. Usually I have to rethink my stance on a whisky after so much time has passed, but this is the same stuff it’s always been. But perhaps I do need to rethink my definition of luxury.

It’s not very interesting. But really there’s nothing here to criticize, either. There’s little in the way of richness or body, so it’s a bit boring for a whisky snob like myself. But they aren’t making this for the snobs, are they? Smooth and easy is just fine for most consumers.

This was the fancy stuff back in college. This and Crown Royal were the pinnacle of luxury when I was studying and supporting myself with a part-time shoe store gig. That was years ago, but I still have fond memories of Jameson. Let’s come back to it.

Nose: Pears, honey, vinegar, metal, barley, and a grainy scent that’s reminiscent of a Canadian whisky. All pretty high-pitched stuff. Maybe not the most enticing nose, but pleasant enough.

Palate: Mild arrival. This is dangerously smooth. Fruitier and sweeter than the nose suggested. Honey, lavender, apple cider, licorice, barley, grain, and some gentle baking spices.

Finish: Spices like nutmeg and cinnamon give a very gentle prickle. Red licorice, honey, apple cider, grain, and barley. There’s a soft oak note hiding just behind the barley. Very much a continuation of the palate. Short and easy.

It had been years since I’d tried Jameson. Usually I have to rethink my stance on a whisky after so much time has passed, but this is the same stuff it’s always been. But perhaps I do need to rethink my definition of luxury.

It’s not very interesting. But really there’s nothing here to criticize, either. There’s little in the way of richness or body, so it’s a bit boring for a whisky snob like myself. But they aren’t making this for the snobs, are they? Smooth and easy is just fine for most consumers.

My wife purchased a Master of Malt Whisky Calender for me for Christmas. This whisky calender was comprised of 24 different whisky samples varying in whisky regions, ages, abv strengths, types of whisky, etc.

I'd tried only a few of the whiskies before, and had been working my way through some entry level whiskies, some of which I'd had before, when on the third day I decided I needed to mix things up.

I decided to try a whisky that I used to drink many years ago, abeit in whiskies and coke and over ice.

An Irish whisky.

Jameson.

Only this time I was trying it neat.

In a glencairn.

Wewt!

Time to see the differences.

Nose is sweet with citrus, apples, spices, specifically hints of cinnamon and nutmeg, some grassy notes along with oak.

Not too bad. Actually considering this is one of the whiskies I grew up on it's really nice to be able to nose it and sit there and say "whisky doesn't smell like whisky, it smells like...."

Huzzah for getting older!

Time for a drink!

Apples, pears, oak, some spices and barley.

It's not awful, however there's something in there that's actively unpleasant, something artificial, something causes a burning sensation when the liquid hits my stomach. Something chemical. Can't place it, but I don't like it.

Actually check that, it is awful.

Finish is short with pears and apples and that chemical flavor.

This is definitely a mixing whisky, if you enjoy whiskies and cokes have lots of fun. However if you're looking for a nice sipping whisky, this is definitely not the whisky for you. Mind you it runs for roughly $40-45 AUS, so it's not horribly priced, however there are quite a few other whiskies in that same price range which are far superior.

Glad that I got a chance to revisit this whisky though, especially without paying for a full bottle!

Nose: delicate. Metallic, peppery, slightly sweet and fruity. Hints of apricot and caramel. Orange zest.

Taste: smooth and silky, light- to medium-bodied, with a slight peppery bite. Citrus flavours dance around amid the coppery tones. Better than I was expecting!

Finish: fades on a bitter note.

Balance: for those who are looking for something smooth, it hardly gets smoother than this. The taste is better than I recall, though.

This is a composite review of samples from 7 different bottles of standard Jameson's over a 5 year period

Nose: sharp unmalted barley with an edge of citrus, licorice, early-moderate intensity of wood flavours in the background

Taste: strong citrus, licorice; sweet and tart, sharp barley. Wood flavours are more in the background. The licorice may be light or heavy, and in 4 of 7 samples had unpleasant tinges of kerosene

Finish: long finish with all of the flavours holding up

Balance: I never know what I am going to get when I sample standard Jameson. I have had samples from two different bottles which I liked very much and would rate at 87, four others which had the heavy kerosene-licorice which I hated, and would rate at 65, and, most recently, one right in the middle, pleasant, but not as good as the first two, which I rate at 82. I average these out to settle on about 74.

In summary, I consider standard Jameson to be a very batch-variable whiskey, and while I LOVE a good batch of it, I would never buy a bottle because I don't know what I am going to get. I have found the Jameson 12 yo Special Reserve to be consistently good, by contrast, and have not seen any 'off' batches of that whiskey yet.

While on a trip to Springfield Mo to see a friend he had talked about a whiskey that he enjoyed even though he didn't like whiskey. Anyways.... Nose: Gentle malt scent, slightly floral (?). Taste: Little malt, tad bit of vanilla, in all honesty tastes like a grown up American beer (There's pros and cons to that statement.) Oddly a little grassy... Body: Light to medium gentle in the mouth Finish:Smooth, a little quick but warming. Worth having at least once. A good exposure for an Irish whiskey but of course gets better with age.

I have only tried a couple of Irish Whiskeys and this is by far the superior one. Nice flavors and not overly rough.

An unplanned and unexpected bonus at the end of a Friday afternoon meeting at my MD’s house. We often stop off for a beer on the way home on Friday evenings – we have a ‘moaning’ chair where we can sit and discuss the week’s ups and downs, plans for business development, family and of course, the weekend ahead.

The MD was working from home this Friday, and we needed to put in a conference call to the US, so I left the office just after lunch, made our plans, the call and then summarised. After the meeting it was time for a quick drink before heading home and a bottle of Jameson was pulled out of the drinks cabinet.

So my first Irish whiskey on my journey, although I’m sure I must have tried this in the past at sometime, although not in the current mindset of trying to unpeel the layers within each new whiskey tasted. (I’m sure Jameson were at one of the boat shows I attended many years ago, handing out samples which would have been used as chasers to the Guinness we normally consumed at these events)

Although Bushmills will claim to be the oldest Irish whiskey, there can be little doubt that Jameson is the most famous and widespread. The company was established in 1780 when John Jameson established the Bow Street Distillery in Dublin.

Jameson was actually Scottish, a lawyer from Alloa who had married Margaret Haig, a sister of the brothers who founded the main Haig firms, and related to the Steins, a Scottish distilling family with interests in Dublin. A Whisk(e)y Dynasty? His family motto and guiding philosophy was "Sine Metu", meaning "Without Fear", which appears today on every bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey.

Originally one of the six main Dublin Whiskeys, distilled at the famous Bow Street distillery Jameson is now distilled at Midleton, an enormous modern distillery in County Cork built by Irish Distillers to streamline the production of its many brands. This brought an end to nearly 200 years of Jameson production in Dublin, but the Old Jameson Distillery in Bow Street is now a visitor's centre although I understand vatting still takes place in Dublin.

The Midleton distillery is home to many other brands beside Jameson, including Green Spot, Paddy, Power's, Redbreast and Tullamore Dew.

Jameson is similar in its adherence to the single distillery principle to the single malt tradition, but Jameson combines malted barley with unmalted or "green" Irish barley, all sourced from within a fifty mile radius around the distillery in Cork. The barley is dried in a closed kiln fired by clean-burning natural gas, and formerly anthracite coal, to preserve its flavour. The most famous component within Jameson is the "Pure Pot Still" distilling tradition.

Legally Irish Whiskey must be matured on the island of Ireland for a minimum of 3 years. Jameson is, however, matured for between 3 and 7 years. Like most Irish whiskey, Jameson is triple distilled for optimum smoothness.

The philosophy is balance, ensuring that no one flavour element overpowers another. The end result is a sweet-tasting whiskey: The balance between just the right amount of malted and un-malted barley to give a natural barley flavour. Balancing the exact proportions of triple distilled Pot Still Whiskeys and then triple distilled Grain Whiskeys to deliver exceptional smoothness. Balance the sweet, nutty flavour from Sherry casks with the toasted wood and vanilla notes from Bourbon casks.

So what did I think ?

I was really surprised by this Jameson. I don’t know quite what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this! The levels of complexity from a mass produced signature blend was quite stunning. I’m not sure if it is the mixture of the malted and un-malted barley, the mixture of the Pot Still Whiskey and the Grain Whisky, but I’m liking it.

Colour: Golden amber

Body: Rich, the legs taking an age to return to the glass

Nose : The nose is full and floral with a smooth sweetness. Marmalade and fudge, sherry undertones, peppered with spicy wood and a little cut grass note

Taste: A great balance of spicy, nutty, woody and vanilla notes with hints of sweet sherry and exceptional smoothness.

Finish: Medium-length with spice and honey, Incredibly smooth and mellow

I consulted Jim Murray’s whisky bible the following day, he liked it too, and gave it very high marks, an incredible 95 points putting it on a par with the likes of Argbeg 10 and Glenfiddich’s Snow Phoenix.

In terms of bang for your buck, this has it !

My ‘Brucie bonus’ was I got to take the bottle home to add to my whisky shelf at the end of the day so I can revisit this at least until the bottle is drained.

I've been drinking Scotch, Bourbon, etc. for quite a while, but never sampled Jameson before. Crazy huh? Not until the Rihanna song came out -- "Cheers" -- where she references let the Jameson sink in, was I interested enough to try it.

Well, I finally did. I'll say this...it's very smooth. Very easy to drink neat. Comparable in my mind to Glenfiddich 12 and / or Glenlivet 12. Won't make you inhale and cry.

That being said, on a price / value equation -- i picked up a bottle (750ML) for 18.99. At that price, it was a steal. I enjoyed it a great deal.

It comes nowhere near Talisker, Ardberg or the other peaty Scotches I've come to love, but for what you pay, it's a steal.

Enjoy my friends.

Being from Ireland myself, I have a soft spot when it comes to irish whiskies so I had to give Jameson a try.

it pours a medium gold colour

The nose consisted mainly of spice and vanilla, both of which can also be noticed on the palate.

I've been a pretty big fan of Jameson during my earlier college years, but I was a young chap back then; I liked it, but I liked everything. Now that I feel I've had a bit of experience in whisky, I think it's time to actually sit down and give it a fair shake.

The first thing I get on the nose is a touch of cereal sweetness, akin to how I would imagine frosted flakes and rice crispies would smell if you pulverized them, took the grain and heated it up in a pan until they started steaming; there's the grain smell, but laced with some sugar sweetness.

It has a fairly light body with rapidly falling legs in the glass. On the palate, I get that grain cereal again, but more honey sweetness than sugar, with a touch of burnt wood and caramel on the back of the tongue, as well as a slight touch of clove. It lingers on the finish with that cereal again, and a mellow spiciness (cinnamon sprinkled over the top).

I do really enjoy this as a nice casual, everyday drinking whiskey, either neat or on the rocks, and it's a very fair price for the quality / consistency it gives. It's not the most complex thing in the world, but it is perfectly enjoyable.

I simply had to try this one as I have a soft spot for Irish whiskey - and this is the bestselling brand, I'm told by the store owner who sold me the bottle.

It was originally distilled in Dublin, but is now produced at the Midleton distillery in County Cork.

The nose is rather complex with spice, accompanied by floral and sherry notes. Adding a bit of water also revealed oranges.

The body is rich and oily, like most Irish dram.

On the palate it's rather citric with some vanilla and sherry (no surprise there)and again spices, that warm the mouth.

The spiciness continues into the long finish that gently warms the body. And while I can imagine most people will say this Jameson is deservedly no. 1 on the Irish market, I'm left somewhat dissappointed, but cannot put the finger on the reason for it. Maybe I expected too much?

Not bad, but not in my personal top 10 either.

This Jameson is golden amber in colour with an aromatic nose. There is some initial sweetness which incorporates vanilla, dried fruits (think of sultanas plus candied orange and lemon peel) and cereal grains. Then comes a savoury/bitter note that is hard to pin down but is most reminiscent of oaky wood. On the palate, this feels thick, rich and a little oily in the mouth with the vanilla, dried fruits and cereals all present again. The citrus peel and zesty notes are particularly prominent and enjoyable. There is also some further sweetness (think of honey) and this is balanced by some bitterness (imagine grain husks and wood) and a distinct spiciness that appears (think of nutmeg and cinnamon). The finish is relatively short with a sweet, creamy beginning (vanilla and citrus zest again) before turning spicy (that nutmeg again) and slightly bitter (imagine husks of grain). For the full review, please visit www.whiskyforeveryone.blogspot.com