Amrut Bengal Tiger
I’ve been thinking lately about the way whisky is priced in relation to age, availability, and quality. In the good old days before NAS and limited releases, whisky seemed to be priced mostly based on its age. In the world of single malt scotch, a 10-12 year expression was pretty much the normal entry level bottle, with a 15 year a bit more expensive, followed by an 18 year more expensive still, and so on down the line. This is still true for many distilleries, but these days there are plenty of young or NAS whiskies priced based on various other factors (and unfortunately the main factor usually seems to be marketing). This tends to annoy a lot of whisky fans, and understandably so. A lot of us dislike the idea of paying $XXX for a whisky that’s only X years old (insert your own numbers).
But what is ultimately more important in relation to price, age or quality? Which is more palatable, paying $100 for an 18 year old whisky that is mediocre or paying the same amount for a 4 year old whisky that is fantastic? A lot of us whisky fans like to point out that age itself doesn’t make a whisky great and that young whiskies can be excellent, but the minute that excellent young whisky gets priced relative to its quality (or a bit above it), we complain.
And we should complain, I’m not arguing otherwise. We should complain when a two year old rye is sold for $130, even if it is mighty tasty stuff (Peerless Rye isn’t $130 tasty though… let it continue to be a shelf turd, maybe eventually Peerless will wake up to their ridiculous pricing). Still… in an ideal world, shouldn’t whisky be priced strictly by quality and not by age statements? Is it really unreasonable to pay $100 for a 4 year old whisky if that 4 year old whisky is one of the best drams we’ve ever had?
Age usually increases the price of whisky for obvious reasons (storage costs, evaporation, availability, etc.), but there are other cost factors to consider. The quality of grains, fermentation time, the distillation process, cask quality, and many other factors affect the cost of producing a bottle of whisky. So why do so many of us tend to judge value based mostly on age? I supposed part of the reason is that whisky producers tried to sell us on “older is better” for so many years, and we still tend to assume that mantra must be true, at least when it’s convenient.
A few years ago I bought an 18 year old indie bottling of Glenburgie for under $40. An 18 year old single malt scotch for under 40 bucks?! Well… yeah, it was 18 years old, so what? It was crappy whisky from a completely inactive cask that must’ve been reused a half dozen times. The bottle still sits in the back of my whisky collection, rarely enjoyed, because there’s little to enjoy about it. It seemed like a good value based entirely on the age to price equation, but in reality, it was terrible value because the whisky wasn’t good.
So how should whisky be priced? Should demand be the primary factor? Distilleries with limited products that sell out immediately face this question, and it seems like many can’t win either way. Price a whisky too high and people complain about the expense and don’t buy it. Price a whisky too low and it sells out immediately, with bottles being flipped on the secondary market at double (or more) the price. So should whisky be priced entirely based on quality? If so, who is going to judge the quality? Every distillery thinks they make a quality product. Ultimately it’s the consumer who judges the quality, which goes back to pricing by market demand. But in this day and age, I think most whisky producers simply price a bottle based entirely on what they think they can get away with. And we let them get away with a lot.
I don’t know the answer to all these questions, but I do think we need to remind ourselves that age shouldn’t be the only factor in determining what is good value (or at least acceptable value) for a bottle of whisky. And that takes us to the subject of today’s review—Amrut “Bengal Tiger” Single Cask.
Bengal Tiger is one of Amrut’s single cask expressions. There are several different versions of it out there, featuring different types of malt (peated or not) and maturation casks. The bottle I’m reviewing was made exclusively for the US market and is labelled as cask number 4668. By the way, the name “Bengal Tiger” does not actually appear anywhere on the label or box—it is referred to as such due to the picture of a bengal tiger on the label.
This particular Bengal Tiger was distilled from peated barley (imported from Scotland). The cask was filled in March 2013 in virgin charred American oak, transferred at some point to a port pipe, and then bottled in October 2017 at cask strength (56.5%). It is one of 480 bottles and sells for around $130. Port plus peat is often a desirable combination amongst whisky fans, particularly those inclined to a “sweet peat” type of dram. I don’t see a whole lot of port-matured Islay (or other peated) whiskies available in the US these days, but Amrut is here to help fill that gap.
Yes, it is a 4 year old whisky that sells for $130. Cheap it is not. Where does that price come from? Even at 4 years old—due to India’s climate—evaporation is a factor. Another factor could be the cask quality and management. In the case of another of the distillery’s expressions, Intermediate Sherry, Amrut is known to take a rather innovative, but expensive, solution to the common problem of sulfur in whisky casks. In order to prevent mold and bacteria from growing inside of a used sherry butt, it is common to fumigate the cask with a sulfur candle before it is shipped to a distillery. This can result in excess sulfur in the whisky. In the case of Intermediate Sherry, Amrut solves this problem by shipping their whisky to Spain so that the sherry butt can be filled with whisky before it is shipped back to India. No sulfur candle necessary. It’s a brilliant idea really, but obviously a much more expensive solution than burning a candle. Do they use the same process for their other expressions, including port pipes? I don’t know, but it’s possible. Even with these expenses, I think Amrut is probably priced in part based on what they think they can get away with. But in this case, maybe it’s not so outlandish.
Sheesh, enough rambling already. And to think, when I sat down to write this review I was worried I wouldn’t have enough to say for the intro. In case you haven’t already guessed, I love this young Indian single malt, as we’ll see in the tasting notes.
Amrut Bengal Tiger Review
Type: Single Malt
Region: India
Age: 4 years
ABV: 56.5%
Non chill-filtered
Natural color
Nose
Powerful. All kinds of deep, dark, red fruits. Freshly cut strawberries and cherries. Smoky and sweetly spicy. A nice bonfire smokiness, with the faint suggestion of toasted marshmallows and people eating s’mores. A bit of tar and burnt rubber, but generally the peat here reminds me more of Longrow than Islay. Seductive and wonderful.
Palate
Wow, talk about sweet peat! Incredibly fruity, loads of strawberry jam, and a hefty dose of savory peat smoke. Big bodied and rich. Sweet caramel and toffee, with plenty of vanilla cream, rum-drenched raisins, and some Christmas spices. Mulled wine too. While perhaps not the most complex whisky in the world (although it’s not lacking for complexity), what’s here is big, bold, and incredibly delicious, with all the flavors working in perfect harmony. No one element overwhelms another. Top it off with a thick and syrupy mouthfeel, and the end result is one fantastic palate.
Finish
Long and rich. Fruit jam with some gently lingering peat smoke. Berries and cherries. Chocolate. Vanilla cake. A touch of marzipan, as well as nutmeg and clove.
Overall
This Amrut is fantastic. Shockingly fantastic. It’s not hyperbole when I say that this is one of the best peated whiskies I’ve ever had—yes, better than nearly anything I’ve ever had from Islay. Is that blasphemy?
Port pipe maturation doesn’t always work for me. Port can render a whisky cloyingly sweet. But here the peat smoke brings balance, and the port isn’t over the top. The combination of Amrut’s peated malt (which is quite good to begin with—see their peated cask strength expression) and a quality port pipe (and virgin American oak) sings in perfect harmony.
If you like “sweet peat” single malts, then this dram is for you. Simply delicious.
SCORE: 9/10
Final Thoughts
Amrut is making some fantastic whisky. While not every expression is a winner (I’m not a big fan of their new madeira finished expression—way too much sweet madeira and not enough malt), the ones that are represent some of my favorite bottles.
If Bengal Tiger was a limited release from one of the Islay distilleries, it would have sold out overnight and would be going for 10 times the price on the secondary market or at auction. Of course being limited to 480 bottles, this Amrut is not easy to come by, but it still can be found in some places in the US for MSRP. Hopefully Amrut will continue to release peated port influenced malts like this in the future. Yes it’s expensive, but if you only worry about the quality of the malt and not the age, it’s actually not such a terrible value proposition.
Buying Advice: If you see a bottle of this Bengal Tiger on the shelf, go for it if you have the money. It is expensive at around $130, but in my opinion it’s worth the price (and one of the few whiskies that is worth that kind of price). Don’t let the young age of the whisky fool you—this is a mature and delicious single malt.
Drink This Not That: Drink this. There’s nothing else quite like it. If you can’t find Bengal Tiger, try Amrut’s peated cask strength expression. Very different whisky, but still very good and much easier to find. I’ll be reviewing that one sometime soon, so stay tuned.
Questions about my scoring system? Refer to the Review Method & Scoring Scale page.
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