Next up in the Dam Dranken Week is the King Cask Cley Distillery bottling. A whisky that brings two of my favourite dutch whisky brands together! Where King Cask is part of Dam Dranken, run by the power couple Joris and Laurie. Cley is run by power couple Paul & Maria! In Rotterdam they’ve been producing amazing whiskies for many years now and their succes allowed them to start building the second biggest whisky distillery in the Netherlands! It should be operational at the start of next year, but until then we can still enjoy some of the gems from the old distillery, including gems like the Cley Oloroso, Cley Malt & Grain, Cley Secret Campbeltown and this King Cask release!
As I’m a huge fan of both Cley and Dam Dranken it’s likely to see many more of their bottlings featured here on the blog, so be sure to keep a look out for those!
But today we’ll be looking at the King Cask Cley bottling. A dynamic aged 4 year old single malt, matured in a charred octave cask. This whisky spent time aboard the Tallship Thalassa during it’s intercontinental voyage from Harlingen (Netherlands), to the Canary Islands, Carribean, Panama, and back. The cask was stored on deck, open to all the elements. Resulting in a very powerful dram, which we will now explore in the tasting notes!
Tasting Notes: King Cask – Cley Distillery
Stats:
ABV: 59% (118 proof)
Age: 4 years old
Distillery: Cley
Bottled by: King Cask / Dam Dranken
Chill-filtered: No
Natural Colour: Yes
Nose:
A powerful nose of intense caramel, vanilla and red fruits awaits. Some burnt caramel is paired with luscious notes of honey and marzipan, with an undertone of figs, cherry and raisin. But there are also some tropical fruit notes, like coconut and even a touch of mango. Throughout the whole experience there’s a big whallop of vanilla to be found that covers the entire dram in a dessert like mood.
Palet:
On the palate we’re welcomed by intense flavours of caramel, vanilla and charred oak. There’s a malty presence here as well, with some warm baked break but overall the focus is predominantly on the freshly crushed vanilla pods, burnt caramel and throughout it all there’s a heavy charred oak chunk undertone. There’s some coconut and even some lychee to discover as well. But the intensity of the other flavours tends to overshadow those subtler notes.
Finish:
The finish is medium long and intensly tannic. Liquorice root and popsicle sticks are paired with more burnt caramel and some tones of ash as well. It’s not an unpleasant finish, but it’s far from my favourite part of this dram. Some ground coffee and extra dark chocolate shows up near the very end, making this quite a fun choice for food pairing!
Food Pairing:
This is a very potent, flavourfull dram. Begging for some potent flavours to go along with it. Extra dark chocolate is the first thing that comes to mind, but I have to say that some fine Italian charcuterie like pastrami works wonders as well! You could even pair this with a nice burger, as those tend to overpower most whisky’s but this is one that can handle that much flavour!
Verdict:
As much as I love both Cley and Dam Dranken, I have to admit that I find this dram a bit too challenging for most palates. If anything it needs a good bit of water to come alive, yet there’s not subtlety to be found here. Don’t get me wrong though, for fans of big and bold flavours there’s still plenty to love here. But after some of the previously tasted dynamic aged bottlings from Dam Dranken I do have to admit to being a bit spoiled perhaps and this one turned out as a bit of a dissapointment for me personally, seeing to of my favourite brands work together perhaps got my hopes up too high.
Without a doubt a nice and bold dram, and for fans of the brands an absolute must have! And if you check out the Whiskybase reviews it might just be me who didn’t love this whisky as much as the others!
