Amrut Intermediate Sherry

Amrut Intermediate Sherry is not particularly well-known – which is a shame, given the quality of this distinctive single malt.

Amrut Distilleries is the first Indian single malt whisky-maker.  A number of their recent expressions have won major International awards. As a result – and like Japan and Taiwan before them – they have now become quite popular with Scotch malt whisky aficionados.

I have previously reviewed one of their more entry level malts, the lightly-peated Amrut Fusion. Please see that review for more background information on Amrut, and on the challenges of maturing whisky in a hot and humid environment.

For Amrut Intermediate Sherry, the distilled spirit starts off in a mix of ex-bourbon and virgin oak casks. It then gets transferred into sherry casks before going back into bourbon casks to complete its final maturation (hence the “intermediate sherry” name). Note that while there is not a lot of information about this distinctive process online, the product label inside my box specifically states that the whisky is transferred into “Spanish ex-Oloroso sherry butts” for one year. I will come back to this point later at the end of my review.

Amrut Intermediate Sherry is bottled at cask-strength, 57.1% ABV in this case. It is obviously not chill-filtered, and I believe no artificial colouring is used. My bottle is from batch 20 (2015).

Here is how it compares to other similar cask-strength single malts in my Meta-Critic Database:

Amrut Fusion: 8.90 ± 0.24 on 22 reviews ($$$$)
Amrut Kadhambam: 8.98 ± 0.25 on 11 reviews ($$$$)
Amrut Intermediate Sherry: 8.93 ± 0.42 on 14 reviews ($$$$)
Amrut Portonova: 8.99 ± 0.30 on 16 reviews ($$$$)
Amrut PX Sherry Single Cask: 8.80 ± 0.51 on 7 reviews ($$$$)
BenRiach Cask Strength: 8.85 ± 0.11 on 4 reviews ($$$$)
GlenDronach Cask Strength (batch 4): 8.91 ± 0.31 on 9 reviews ($$$$)
GlenDronach Cask Strength (batch 5): 8.87 ± 0.11 on 6 reviews ($$$$)
Glengoyne Cask Strength (all batches): 8.59 ± 0.55 on 9 reviews ($$$$)
Kavalan Solist Fino Sherry Cask: 9.02 ± 0.32 on 10 reviews ($$$$$+)
Kavalan Solist Sherry Cask: 9.14 ± 0.35 on 14 reviews ($$$$$)
Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique: 8.97 ± 0.34 on 13 reviews ($$$$$)
Macallan Cask Strength: 8.89 ± 0.40 on 12 reviews ($$$$$+)
Yamazaki Sherry Cask (all vintages): 9.07 ± 0.30 on 11 reviews ($$$$$+)

Here is what I find in the glass:

Color: Rich golden/orangey brown. You can see the effect of ex-bourbon and sherry cask aging.

Nose: Rich nose, bringing in both moist earth and dried tobacco. Very sweet, with heavy raisin and grape overtones, along with blueberries and tropical fruits like banana and kiwis. Chocolate fudge and vanilla cake. This is not your typical Oloroso sherry-finished single malt. Surprisingly, not much ethanol singe despite the high ABV.

Palate: The berry notes from the nose are accentuated, with blackberry and red currants joining the strong blueberry presence. I get a definite impression of blueberry-banana pancakes with maple syrup! Surprising kick of rye spices, particularly cinnamon and all-spice, plus a bit of anise (black licorice) and pepper. Very spicy overall – I’m guessing most of this must be coming from the oak casks. Creamy mouthfeel, but with a drying effect over time. This moist earth/syrupy/astringent combo reminds me of some of the Kavalan fortified wine-finished casks. Water brings up the sweeter port-like grape flavours.

Finish:  Medium long. Sweet wood notes, like hickory (but not as smokey). Lingering fruit, like left-over blueberry pie crust. There is a drying astringency, and a bit of bitterness creeps in over time (but it is not excessive, and water helps here too). A touch of that classic nutty rancio aroma from fortified wines shines through.

amrut-intermediate-sherryThe blueberry experience is really wild here – I can’t say I’ve ever come across this much of it before. But this is definitely not your typical dry Oloroso sherry-finished expression.  Indeed, I’d say it tastes more like a mix of various fortified wines – including both sherry and port – went into finishing this one.

Trusting my taste buds, I decided to look into its background a little further. I eventually found this Business Standard article where the Amrut VP of production specified that they used “400-litre sherry ‘butts’ imported from Spain and Portugal” (emphasis mine).  If this quote is accurate, it would suggest that they mean “sherry” in only a very loose sense – and are in fact incorporating some port casks in the intermediate step.  That would certainly help to explain the classic Portuguese port-like flavours that I am getting here, along with the classic Oloroso sherry and ex-bourbon cask finishing.

Personally, I slightly prefer the Amrut Intermediate Sherry over the Amrut Portonova – which is a classic cask-strength, pure port-finished single malt (and one that I plan to review soon). The Intermediate Sherry probably handles water a bit better as well – it helps bring out some additional flavours, without taking anything away.

For other reviews, Serge of Whisky Fun and Jim Murray both really loved this one (how often does that happen?), as did Thomas of Whisky Saga. Ruben of Whisky Notes, John of Whisky Advocate and Nathan the ScotchNoob both gave moderately positive reviews. The boys of Quebec Whisky were very variable on this one, with Patrick giving it quite a low score.

 

2 comments

  • Peter Aldhelm-White

    This is my favorite Amrut offering, with the Bourbon Cask a close 2nd. Odd that Fusion scores higher as it is no where near the quality of IS. IMHO.

    Can add All Things Whisky (92/100) to the list of impressed reviewers plus the overall score at Whisky Connosr was a 92/100

    Excellent Review, cheers

    • It’s true the average Fusion score is close to the IS. But Fusion gets a very consistent rating by reviewers, whereas IS has some negative reviews, dragging down the average a bit (as indicated by the much higher standard deviation above).

      Also, you need to consider the flavour clusters when looking at scores. Smokey whiskies seem to consistently get higher scores from reviewers than non-smoky ones, which is likely a factor at play here.

      In any case, I personally agree that IS is a better whisky than Fusion.

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