Whisky Review: Slyrs Pedro Ximénez Finish

Slyrs is a whisky distillery in a region not traditionally associated with single malts: Bavaria

Founded in 1999 by Florian Stetter, a German brewer, the distillery was originally part of a brewery, but now occupies its own purpose-built space. Despite the fact that the distillery has been around for over a decade, all of their whiskies are still bottled between three and four years old and are bottled by vintage, much like Kilchoman.

This particular whisky was aged in new American oak barrels for three years, then transferred to ex-PX sherry butts for nine months. The whisky is then proofed down to 46% for bottling.

Thanks to Ian of PDXWhisky for picking up a bottle during his travels and letting me sample this whisky.

Slyrs PX Sherry Edition Nº 1

Nose: sweet raisins, very light malt, toasted grain, molasses, fruit cake/baking spices, creamy brown sugar. After adding a few drops of water, it becomes creamier and the raisins become less sweet, a lot more new make grain comes out, there's some lemongrass hand soap, and a touch of coffee/mocha.

Taste: malt and sherry have blended almost seamlessly, it's lightly sweet up front - fading to bittersweet across the palate, a bit floral at the back with some sour apples and very light oak. After dilution, there's a strong note of burnt sugar, the raisins become more bittersweet, the sour apple note becomes stronger, and there is some emerging pepper and honey.

Finish: light sherry and malt, raisins, sour apples, bittersweet tannins

This is what it is - a young single malt with an aggressive cask finish. The PX sherry, as it is wont to do, has almost completely dominated the malt. Given the new make notes that popped out with water, that might not be a bad thing, but you have to like that style of whisky for this one to do the trick. I can appreciate it to a degree, but it's not something I would want to drink a whole bottle of. Now if this had been lightly peated or smoked, it'd be another matter...