I’ve heard rumblings in the Dutch whisky sphere about this release for the past year or so. Apologies to Martijn, who provided me with a sample, for taking so long to review the Blacks 8 Years Tropical IPA Cask.

Blacks Brewery & Distillery is situated in Kinsale, County Cork. (For clarity, that’s in Ireland.) They’ve been brewing since 2013 and started distilling two years later, making poitín, gin and rum. Two sizeable copper pot stills were bought from Frilli in Italy in 2020, after which whiskey production kicked off properly.

Blacks has been distilling both single malt whiskey and single pot still. As you may have noticed, the Blacks 8 Years Tropical IPA Cask is a single grain whiskey. In this case that means it wasn’t produced at the distillery, but instead sourced from another Irish producer. That’s a common practice in Ireland, although not one I much care for.

The grain whiskey used to create Blacks 8 Years Tropical IPA Cask was sourced from Great Northern Distillery, which is owned by the Teeling family and two former directors of Cooley Distillery. It initially matured in ex-bourbon barrels, before a finishing period in Tropical IPA casks.

Curiously, Blacks’ Tropical IPA beer isn’t barrel aged traditionally, which meant these seasoned Tropical IPA casks were created solely for this experiment.

blacks 8 years tropical ipa cask irish whiskey

Blacks 8 Years Tropical IPA Cask (43%, OB, 2023)

Nose: The IPA cask influence is not just noticeable, it’s leading an onslaught of hoppy, tropical aromas. There’s a gentle, creamy vanilla base, but layered on top are notes of pineapple, mango and peach. Also some slightly harsher oak notes in the background, as well as butter and some resin.
Taste: Jesus. What is this stuff? It’s almost like a pineapple liqueur, but with oak spices, a hoppy bitterness and strong black tea. I’m sure it classifies as whiskey, but this is a flavour profile I’ve never encountered.
Finish: Rather short. A touch of juniper. Green pineapple and bitter notes.

Conclusion

When a whisky is overtly sherried, that's sometimes because it was finished in a wet sherry cask – a cask that had a few leftover litres of sherry sloshing around before it was filled. Might the Blacks 8 Years Tropical IPA Cask have matured in an IPA equivalent?

I generally enjoy whiskies that are different, original and push boundaries, but I have to draw the line somewhere. The spirit needs to be reminiscent of whisky. That's barely the case here, which explains my low score, even though the Blacks 8 Years Tropical IPA Cask has some tasty elements.

7.3

Sample provided by Dram1.com