Once upon a time a French whisky would have raised eyebrows, but now we are used to whiskies from all over the shop. Anyway, Armorik is from Brittany, which is cultural and linguistically close to Scotland, Ireland and especially Wales. The name Armorik refers to the old Roman province of Armorica which encompassed the Brittany peninsula. Enough ancient history, what about the whisky? It's a single malt distilled at the Warenghem Distillery not far from the port at Roscoff and aged in old Oloroso sherry casks.
Red wine booziness, balanced by black pepper and fresh orange.
Chocolatey and rich, with notes of red apple and blackcurrant building slowly in the background.
There's a slight minerality to the finish, though sweetness of sherry remains.
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Nose: Immature and aggressive. Heavily sherried, but the wood from the new casks mostly takes over the nose, which flattens out rather too quickly. Taste: Bites hard. Heavy sherry quickly sinks into the young oak. Not much going on here, as expected from the nose. Finish: Naturally quite short. Not enough sherry, too much young and dry oak. Final thoughts: you can't expect to make a good whisky when it's both this young and from such blatantly unseasoned casks. Adding a minus to a minus doesn't make a plus. I am usually a fan of 46 ABV releases, but here it actually seems detrimental to the palate proper. This would have certainly been better at a mere and gentle 40. Unfortunately this release is a hard pass for me. I'm sure they can do much better to represent the French whisky industry than this. I will be looking forward to trying their 10.
