Wiser's Small Batch

I've enjoyed your reviews, Victor, especially as I'm favouring Canadian whisky on my most recent whisky voyage, but I have to disagree about this ill-mannered brute. Do you have a bad micro-batch of the Small Batch, I wonder.

The nose is Fort Knox closed at first, and has to stand in the corner for nearly ten minutes and take on a drop or two of forced water before it behaves and erupts into good behaviour and recalls the interior of a Niagara-on-the Lake fudge shop: yum! Seriously, a little water is the skeleton's key to getting a great nosing. It's thereafter cactusy-prickly hot and spicy on the tongue and pretty long.

I do hear what you say about the chemicals, though. Wiser's, which I love, has some kind of acquired taste/profile that I can't describe really but happen to love but is also alienating to some, I suspect.

Anyway, cheers, Tim

@Requiem, thank you for your comments and for your kind words. I am just now drinking the Wiser's Small Batch with a little water, as you have suggested. I do find that it improves both the nose and the palate noticeably. The chemical smells and tastes do not completely go away, however. I like the maple flavours and the rye flavours here. It is just the chemicals that get in the way for me. I will most likely from now on make a point of consuming this with a couple of drops of water. Cheers, Tim.

No problem. I do hope those chemicals disappear. Tell me, is there any relation to Legacy? Is Small Batch a dirty little brother of Legacy? I have yet to try Legacy and plan to very soon after reading all the good stuff on it, including your review.

@Requiem, it would be a welcome and pleasant surprise if the chemical smells and tastes in the Wiser's Small Batch fade away over time now that the bottle is open.

To my palate Wiser's Small Batch and Wiser's Legacy might just as well live in two separate universes. It is remarkable that the two are distilled by the same company. I taste nothing artificial or chemical in Legacy at all. But that is just what is not wrong with Legacy. More importantly everything is right with it. Lush, smooth, flavourful, complex, magnificent.

You've certainly sold me: "complex [and] magnificent" is impossible to turn down. I can't wait to try it as I love the 18YO.

@Requiem, I hope that you enjoy Wiser's Legacy as much as I do.

Did you ever get to revisit this one victor? I tried this for the first time this week and was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. Even more so considering it's cost. Maybe you got a bad batch and I got a good one? It looks to be a couple years since your review. I understand how the appearance of Harsh chemicals to the taste of a whiskey can put one off. I did have a bad experience with an Alberta Premium Dark Horse some time back where my review for that was somewhat like yours for this whereas the stuff was teeming with chemical taste. Cleaning Products to be more precise. I'm going to give it another shot in the near future once I build up enough will power just to be sure I didn't get a bad batch.

Greetings, @mrgargas. I saw your @talexander's recent laudatory comments about Wiser's Small Batch, and wondered whether I would be drawn into the discussion. It is, of course, always good to go back and sample the actual product before commenting, so I am doing that right now with my 2 1/2 year old, 1 year gas-preserved 90% full bottle of Wiser's Small Batch. The nose still seems very artificial and chemical to me. Taste: pretty much as I described in my review, above. The maple flavours are so intense it makes me wonder whether maple syrup has been added to it, but the chemical undertones remain. I cannot say that this bottle is any more appealing than it was when I did the review.

When I meet you in person one day, I would be happy to sample from your bottle of Wiser's Small Batch, to see whether it is significantly different from mine. There is a lot more variation in batches of whisky than people would like to believe. I do not discount the possibility that another bottle from another batch of the "same" whisky might taste different than my bottle does. I have seen it quite a few times already.