St. George's Chapter 9 Peated Review

Country: England 

Region: Norfolk

Brand: St. George's Chapter 9 (Peated)

Type: Single Malt Whisky

Age: NAS (In fact 3 Years)

ABV: 46 %

Date: 30/09/2013

Colour: Pale Straw/White Wine

Nose: Quite Young Earthy Spirit! I find light Smoke and Peat, Plastic/Rubber, Alcohol, Green Oak, Vanilla, Wallpaper Paste, Cured Pork, Pepper, Lemon Peel, Nuts, Resin, Straw and Green Apples. Traces of Honey, Mango and Green Coffee Beans.

Palate: Spicy, Grassy and slightly Medicinal with Pepper, Straw, Alcohol, Malt, light Smoke, Oak, Vanilla, MInt, light Licorice, Lemon Peel and Green Apples.

Finish: Short, Spicy and Edgy with Pepper, Nuts, Oak, Green Coffee Beans, Ginger and Cardamom.

With some added Water, the Nose gets more Malt and Honey. Obviously, the Alcohol is toned down somewhat. But Pepper, Cardamom and Licorice start to dominate Palate and, especially, the Finish. Still, it can be fun to play with a couple of drops in this case.

Rating: 79.5

Nose: 20.5 - Taste: 20 - Finish: 19.5 - Overall: 19.5

General Remarks: St. George's is a very new distillery, founded in 2006 by James and Andrew Nelstrop (The English Whisky Co.) at Roudham, East Harling (Norfolk) in the UK. They were helped by distiller Iain Henderson Ex-Laphroaig who also trained the present distillery-manager David Fitt. So far more than 2000 casks have been produced. All whisky is Batch made by hand, naturally coloured and not Chill-Filtered. Chapter 9 was the first peated English Single Malt. It was distilled in May 2007, bottled in May 2010 and matured in first fill Ex-Bourbon Casks. It sells at around 60 US Dollars.

Drinking Experience Neat: Okay/Good

Conclusion: I can certainly see potential for this young Distillery. Obviously, three years is a short maturation period and the Spirit smells and tastes rather young and unfinished. The Alcohol is not at all integrated. The Finish is really on the Sharp Side. But the Spirit is not artificially coloured, not Chill-Filtered and has a nice high ABV! And the light Peat is well done and adds to the flavour rather than trying to control it. I hope that St. George's finds enough cash to sit on their stocks for a while. Because I would look forward to taste a 12 Year Old from this distillery!

Jan van den Ende                                                        September 2013