Found North Tasting Review
Background
“Peregrine changed everything.” While unsurprising, it was incredibly interesting to hear Chris Riesbeck, VP of Sales and Marketing, deep dive into how wild things have been for Found North recently. Full disclaimer, this tasting was put on by J ST Whiskey, which is a group I’m heavily involved in. It was such a riveting conversation, though, that I figured I would share some of the insights as well as review the bottles we tasted through. While there was a lot of interesting discussion around how Found North is sourced and blended, what I personally found most interesting was Chris’ sales perspective. In no particular order, here were some nuggets that stuck out to me:
Starting with the obvious, Found North’s goal is to bring amazing blended Canadian whiskey offerings to market. Their goal is to make products that resonate with bourbon drinkers. They want to providing high age statement, cask strength whiskeys that are often re-racked to add more oak influence to market.
No shit, you’re probably thinking. Well the focus on Canadian Whiskey is so much so the case that they were recently offered some 22 year old bourbon that they actually turned down. This was pretty wild to me, because they 100% could have slapped the white-hot Found North label on it and made, by my expert estimations, a gajillion dollars.
The major theme of the evening: improve how their whiskey gets into the hands of enthusiasts who are actually going to drink it. This meant a remarkably refreshing perspective on liquor stores vs. whiskey groups. They are prioritizing picks through whiskey groups rather than stores. The logic being that groups take a more curation oriented approach than more whiskey stores. Chris made a great point, that you can throw a rock and hit a store with a big whiskey selection nowadays, but big does not equal good, nor does it mean that owner is actually promoting their products.
On a similar note, he expressed healthy skepticism over large stores “buying” their way into allocations. Of course big stores can buy more product from distributors in order to get access to allocated bottles, but how does that benefit Found North? They are also actively working to track stores that put a huge markup on their products and stop them from getting future allocation.
For those frustrated with the recent release availability, they are WELL aware. They are actually taking meetings with companies that specialize in running lotteries and QCing entries.
In the off chance this makes its way to Found North eyeballs, I can’t say a hearty enough thanks to their team, and Chris in particular, for such a wonderful event. This was without a doubt one of the most informative tastings I’ve ever attended.
Found North Batch 005 (8 Years, 116.2 Proof)
Nose: Creamy caramels, creme brulee and lemon curd. Cream of wheat. Pretty gentle with pops of bright lemon-y citrus.
Palate: The lemon grows in prominence, and there's a delicate but ever present wood influence. A bit doughy, and chewy. It’s not the most flavor rich palate.
Finish: Good length, the wood influence borders on becoming a bit astringent. There’s still some of that lemon/citrus note, and a tobacco note.
Good (5/10)
Overall: It delivers on its premise of an oak driven dram… and doesn’t do a ton else for me. It’s not necessarily flawed, but I was hoping for a little bit more flavor. “Good” is about where I land on this.
Found North Batch 008 (18 Years, 124.4 Proof)
Nose: Gushers? It's fruity, at times yielding pops of red fruit, at other times an orange crush type note. A vibrant and highly alluring nose.
Palate: Dried cocktail oranges, pepper jelly- in that it's a wonderful marriage of fruit and spice. At times you get something akin to potpourri, others a farmers market style marmalade.
Finish: The finish is a nice rush of rye spices. Apple cider donuts, anise, crushed red pepper and hot honey.
Excellent (8/10)
Overall: This batch has some of what I've been missing with other Found North offerings I’ve had to date: a lovely marriage of cask influence and distillate. It has a drumbeat of spicy rye notes all orbiting these pops of bright fruit. Delicious.
Found North Batch 009 (19 Years, 124.6 Proof)
Overall: I just reviewed this batch... but this time I'm getting a big, sludgy, melted cherry popsicle or cough drop note. It's tough for me, I’ll be honest. Here’s what I think happened: the bottles were cracked just for this tasting and, having helped setup for the tasting, I’m pretty sure I had one of the first pours off a newly opened bottle. The bottle I reviewed, on the other hand, had opened up much more. I’ll leave it at that and am not going to revisit this score, but this came across rough for me.
Found North Hell Diver First Flight (15 Years, 119 Proof)
Nose: Mangos and cherry cordial. It smells syrupy right from the jump, you immediately get that Pedro-Ximenez influence. It’s a fruit punch of a whiskey.
Palate: Raisiny, dark chocolate and more cherry cordial. It’s a thick one, sometimes verging on slightly too syrupy. Sticky toffee pudding and cinnamon red hots.
Finish: Tannic, in a nice way.Iit pulls at the palate in the way a fancy dark chocolate does. Fruit cake with a heavy dose of baking spices.
Great (7/10)
Overall: PX-y! It is actually reminiscent to me of a Glendronach or Glenallachie. If you like this and dont think you'd like scotch, I'd posit you haven't had the right scotch and are ripe to try or revisit a nice sherry bomb scotch. The PX does kind of dominant the blend for me. I love PX so that’s not a huge deal.
Found North Batch 007: Second Summit (19 Years, 126.2 Proof)
Nose: Farmers market berry preserves, hints of mint. It reminds me almost of like a flavored mint julep. Has a perfect nose for a mid-summer pour.
Palate: Bakery berry tarts, and everything that goes with that. Caramelized notes, pastry dough, maybe a bit of powdered sugar on top. Throw in some pumpkin pie spice for good measure.
Finish: The juiceness persists, which I find unique for my experiences with wine cask influence spirits. They typically bring a dryness that I’m not really picking up here. There’s also a bit of a minty herbaceousness.
Excellent (8/10)
Overall: This whiskey takes Found North Batch 007, and adds an extra three months of finishing in ex-Malbec casks. The results are sublime- rich, fruit forward, but maintains a nice balance of not moving into overly syrupy of saccharine sweet territory.
