Tasting

Smoke is what people expect when tasting Tasmanian whisky for the first time, and they're usually surprised. Most of the island's releases are fruity and malty, shaped by the wine casks they mature in rather than by peat. Anyone familiar with Islay or Speyside needs to reset their expectations for Tasmania.

Sullivans Cove French Oak Cask makes this clear: dark dried fruit, a touch of caramel, a soft, wine-like finish from the former Tasmanian wine casks. Overeem Port Cask leans in a similar direction, only bolder and sweeter, with berry notes from the port.

Anyone still searching for smoke will find it at Belgrove. The Peated Rye pairs the spicy bite of rye with salty coastal peat smoke. In flavour, it sits closer to Islay than anything else produced on the island.

These whiskies are best tasted neat or with a few drops of still water. This opens up the fruit notes without diluting them. A tulip-shaped nosing glass concentrates the aroma far better than a wide tumbler.

Flavour varies more between individual casks than with the big Scottish brands, since almost everything is bottled in small batches or as single casks. Two bottles from the same distillery can therefore taste noticeably different.

Anyone tasting several Tasmanian whiskies side by side will pick out the cask above all, not the distillery. That makes tasting on the island more a journey through wine notes than smoke notes, with the cask as the real storyteller.