Today we pair 4 epic single cask Kavalan's together. The Manzanilla, PX, Amontillado, and Moscatel. 4 absolute sherry bombs at CS from possibly the best distillery in the world. What can't go right? Join us on Patreon @ / topshelfwhisky
So my wife went to Taipei Taiwan to local mall and they have a booth set up there. Omg the prices are half the price compared to the US. $32-33 Taiwan dollar(TWD) is $1 US dollar. The Fino sherry cask that’s not in your video is 6,600TWD so about 200usd. The PX sherry is about 10,000TWD so about 300ish. The manza, amatadalo,moscatel are all 8,000twd each so roughly 240ish each. They gave her a free cup and a sample whisky. Think airplane limit is 1 bottle for united airlines. No tax which is nice if you show your pass port. They had all kinds of different stuff at the booth the packaging was in dragon boxes they had 200 ml sherry cask strength that looks like a miniature still shaped bottle. They were nice enough to get the 59% alcohol version of the bottles. I’m sure there probably even better stuff at the distillery. Can’t say what’s at the duty free store at the air port. Great video 👍
The real battle of titans. I have all four plus Fino and my favorite is also Moscatel and then Fino. Interestingly I didn’t like it at the beginning but once it opened up, my god. Probably the best whisky in my collection even above my Springbank 25, Black Art 10.1, and Highland Park 30. What makes me laugh is people hunting underwhelming, overpriced Yamazaki or Macallan and call Kavalan too expensive!
Man I need a fino, I've had a few times, but not sure I liked it as much as you did. But I never had my own bottle to spend time with! And agree on the macallan and yamazaki stuff. Kavalan shames them and does so at prices they couldn't match for quality and proof.
@@topshelfdustin3060 As you said it before, single cask stuff. My first bottle of Fino was very good not mind blowing but few months back saw one at the shop at 400$, when checking out the bottle I realized it’s over 9 years old ( distilled in 2006 bottled in 2015) so had to buy it. Rest is history
Great 4 way. You are getting into Skyline chili territory. Definitely smells purple. All I know about Amontillado is it has something to do with a brick wall. Cheers out on the ocean.
Now what the heck only one i don't have, moscatel 🤦♂️ Well, on the bright side, at least now i have something to look forward to getting one of these days😁 I do wish u did it blind but then again you'd probably know exactly which is which from their distinct profiles
love this review. will you also do a review with basic solist line? And did you guys try the podium? i think the podium is a great value whisky. a good full sherry maturated 15 year old high abv scotch i would recommend you is the glen garioch 15 sherry cask.
Hmm, I have vino and port. I could get a new bourbon (twist my arm, right?). I'd still need at least the fino to complete it out. Oh and of course the standard oloroso. I'm not sure that would make for a great review given how unique they all are. This worked more so because these are 4 similar but different sherries. But I'm not against more kavalan drinking!
there are some other solists as well. for example in germany we can get a brandy cask or a madeira cask. but i agree with you kavalan in general is nice and the "normal" solists do have a big variation. i just tried the madeira cask in a bar and to be honest i did not like it as much as the port or the vinho barrique. it was more on the dry side. i expect the brandy cask to go into the same direction. the olorosso and the port are more on the molasses side for me and the vinho barrique more on gummy bears XD.@@topshelfdustin3060
Hey guys, out of curiosity what were the cask numbers/bottling dates? One of the big issues with some of their stuff after the Ian Chang left is they started pushing stuff out a lot younger (4-5 v.s. 6-10yo stuff). Of these for me its Amontillado>Moscatel>Manzanilla>PX all day.
That would take some time as we don't have the bottles together, but I'm pretty sure there were all 2016 +/- 2 years in terms of bottled dates and then 5-7 years old. Never seen a non pick in that 10 range.
@@topshelfdustin3060 fair enough, I have a non-pick PX 2010-20 and a Manzanilla 2011-20 in my set, both just random buys in Canada. My moscatel and amontillado are 5/6 respectively. Their newer releases in 2022/23 all seem to be barreled in 2017 ish or later.
i dont know what u guys are talking about with the px. but i guess you were nit picking. but... just alcohol? cmon dustin, what are you saying? px is an overwhelming amount of flavor. like im usually too intimidated to drink it, my bottle is probably gonna last a long time. but when i want a cannon blast of flavor to my tastebuds i mean what else can compete? manzanilla and amontillado dont do that :\
