Background

Been a pretty good year for Found North! Hot off the heels of their High Altitude Collection debut, Peregrine: First Flight, last year, they rolled out the second release: Hell Diver. That release was met with rapturous demand, selling out so quickly that Found North decided to make it up to lottery entrants by giving them early access to this Batch 009. Despite an outturn over over 6,000 bottles (compared to the 2,208 of Hell Diver) this release also immediately sold out online. There’s a secondary market for virtually ever release they put out now, and it’s clear from the growing batch sizes, they are doing what they can to try to meet this demand.

I won’t spend a ton of time on the background, Found North is wonderfully transparent on their site, consistently listing the components of each release. On both the site and the back of the bottle, Found North provides a “managers proof” suggestion:

“Adding water to whisky causes an exothermic reaction that releases flavors from the whisky through evaporation. While we favor bottling at cask strength, Manager's Proof is our recommendation for how much water to add to a given Batch release. For Batch 009 we recommend adding 0.2 mls of water to a 50ml pour and letting it rest for 10 minutes. We find this releases a candied red apple note on the nose, enhances the nutmeg quality on the finish and gives the mid-palate a beautiful sticky caramel texture.”

I’m going to take them up on this and review this whiskey twice. Once at the bottled proof, and once at Manager’s Proof.

Found North Batch 009 (19 Years, 124.6 Proof)

Nose: The port influence clearly pops from the jump. Tart red fruits, raspberry in particular. It has a bit of that bite you get from a handful of berries, where it’s not all sweet and the tartness comes through. There’s some pie crust, confectionery sugar, and a toasted oak note that cuts the sweeter notes.

Palate: Thick, wildflower honey and more red berries, raspberry is again the one I’m getting specifically. There’s an occasional menthol note, it has an interesting minerality too. It has a nice balance of juicier fruit notes and undercurrents of that minerality as well as some toasted oak.

Finish: Cinnamon coffee cake, that minerality hangs around too. Rock candy. There’s that toasted oak note still, it’s a touch drying. Lingering notes of grape save it from being prohibitively dry.

Very Good to Great (6.5/10)

Overall: Gun to my head, I like this a bit less than Peregrine. It has a real consistent through line of flavors, but I found Peregrine to be a bit more ambitious (though a touch scattershot). The port influence is clear, and provides a steadying red fruit note from nose to finish. Great texture as well, leaving a nice coating on the palate. It gets a smidge dry at the end, and the menthol/minty note on the palate stuck out to me as a touch discordant.

Found North Batch 009 (19 Years, Manager’s Proof)

Nose: The nose is a more floral. It’s almost a little like potpourri. I also get a slightly more specific, cherry blossom note. A fresh bouquet compared to the crushed raspberries I was getting at base proof. There’s also a prevailing orchard fruit note.

Palate: Now I’m getting canned peaches. There’s definitely a similar viscosity, though it’s softened from that thicker honey note to more of a sticky fruit juice. Brown bread covered in butter and cinnamon sugar.

Finish: A bit more cinnamon driven, as well as some black licorice. Some of that rock candy note, and I’m also getting that brown bread and butter combo hanging out from the palate. Hints of the orchard fruit persist as well, but are backgrounded.

Very Good (6/10)

Overall: Still pretty good! I prefer the bottle proof ever so slightly more given the water somewhat mitigates one of my favorite aspects of the bottle proof- the texture. That said, I love that Found North offered this up as an option for people. If someone felt strongly about loving the Manager’s Proof more, I certainly would not argue with them.