Spanish whisky: DYC 8

The following post reads a bit… jaded for some reason. I’m not sure why, but it is what it is and looking at it now, I don’t want to compromise the integrity of the orginal piece of work so, for better or worse, here it is.

DYC8 is a blended Spanish whisky (yes, such a thing exists) that I actively looked for when I went to Spain on the Golfageddon excursion last  July. You can read a little more about how that came about here. Now though, it is time to give you my critical appraisal of this product.

It is made from a combination of malts and distilled cereals which, as the name suggests, are aged (separately) for a minimum of 8 years, and is bottled at a standard 40% ABV.

DYC also produces 3 and 5 year old blends, a pure malt with no age statement and a 10 year old single malt, that last of which you can also read a little about in the Golfageddon post.

They are all pretty cheap – the single malt was something like 14 euros and the DYC8 a mere 11 euros, so you’re looking at a bargain whatever  – unless it’s really bad, but little can be that bad.

Presentation: A chunky green bottle with a red label, and its 8 years displayed proudly. There’s also a bit of a description on the back. As is par for the course for blends, the cap is a metal screwcap, but sadly my bottle came equipped with one of those Spanish pour resistors.

Colour:  What does it matter what colour a whisky is? It doesn’t. Nevertheless, to that end, it is fairly pale and the bottle is tinted green, correspondingly.

Nose: Literally seems to smell of nothing; there could be a tiny bit of vanilla, but all whisky seems to smell of that these days – I suppose that’s the wood. Some weeks after opening I noticed a smell of stale pants – like when you’re doing the laundry and get a whiff of something particularly pungent. I’m thinking this must be down to something in production since I noticed the same thing in a bottle of white rum recently. I suppose part of my failing in nosing is that I do often recognise scents in my spirits, but I can’t place them. Then, when I go for a second sniff the smell is gone. And it’s not really there anyway.

Palate: I’ve been spoilt with some decent blends recently – namely the delicate gems White Horse and Jim McEwan’s Symphony – but this one disappoints in comparison. It lacks a bit of sweetness, and what I originally thought were weak but pleasant botanical flavours later became extremely unpleasant and aniseedy. I don’t like aniseed, and even if I did, I don’t think I’d like to taste it in my whisky. There’s also something a little buttery about it.

Finish: Not particularly much.

A couple of other blogs suggested this blend might be conceived for drinking with ice – given how hot it is in Spain much of the time - so  I figured I’d best try it in that manner. There are however a couple of problems with that. First, I don’t want to drink my whisky with ice, so it’s not really something I have any need for.  Second; ice doesn’t actually improve it at all.

Conclusion: DYC has been consigned to the duggie section of my liquor cabinet for occasions when I know my tasting faculties aren’t up to much or I just want a drink without having to waste the good stuff. I’m just not really sure what this is for unless it’s for making cocktails, and I’m not even sure it would lend itself too well to that. It’s certainly cheap enough to use for that – but is that enough to justify its existence? It isn’t baaaad as such… it just isn’t good either.

I didn’t get chance to do a full review of the DYC10, but I do remember enjoying that to an extent so if you find yourself in Spain, with a choice between the two, I strongly recommend you pay that extra 3 euros and get the single malt. I would get something else but of course, I’ve tried both now, and why double up when there’s a whole world of whisky that needs drinking?

Thanks for joining me once again. Next week’s post is currently intended to be entirely about Jack Daniel’s Old No 7. Hopefully it will be a little more enthusiastic than this week’s. Join me then, to find out if it is.