Ok, that's a bit of an overstatement, I don't think I'll ever enjoy any whisky. Let's just say I don't dislike this whisky like I normally do the others.
The Orchard House by Compass Box was hubby's treat to himself last Christmas, not that he needs an excuse to treat himself when buying a bottle of whisky. He normally buys a bottle every Christmas after the annual whisky reviews are announced by his favourite YouTubers. He was delighted when he saw the Orchard House in our local supermarket.
At first glance, the Orchard House looks very different from traditional whiskies and stood out easily on the supermarket shelf. In fact, if it wasn't on the whisky shelf, you wouldn't guess it was a bottle of whisky. The green box, the name, and the fruits hanging on the front of the box give a very Adam and Eve vibe. And what do you think of immediately? Yes, apples!! I think the design and marketing is very clever. Even if you have a very good product, you need a good marketing tactic nowadays as the whisky market is so crowded.
The Orchard House is 46% ABV non chill filtered natural colour blended whisky. Hubby says the distillery is a bit different from other blended whisky because they actually tell you what's in the blend. Most don't. If you go on the Compass Box website here you'll find the diagram below which list out what they have blended. There are 6 single malt whisky, with 2 that make up 75%, and both have apple notes, making it the dominant aroma. It's very distinctive as soon as I open up a bottle and pleasant on the nose. Even the non-whisky drinker in me can smell it, hence my first comment that I don't dislike it. The other 4 single blend make up 24% and they all have a sweet fruity flavour. And finally, there's 2% blended malt whisky, making a total of 101%, if like me, you like to fact check things 😀
This is the only whisky so far that I smelled and tasted and thought this is nice. Despite the floral notes and use of bourbon casks, it wasn't sickly sweet. I wouldn't go as far as saying it converted me, but it's definitely not something that whacked me across the head to put me off.
Then I had an idea! We had opened a bottle of lychee flavour sake a few days ago. It was a gift from a friend last year, but unfortunately it didn't live up to its expectation and we hadn't figured out what to do with it. Why not try to make a cocktail? The lychee flavour sake had a floral note, similar to the Orchard House, and all we needed was to mix it with some soda water. I played around with the proportions, and think I ended up with 1 part Orchard House, 2 parts sake and about 7 or 8 parts soda water. My first attempt at mixing my own cocktail wasn't too bad. Then hubby suggested to try is with his bottle of Knob Creek that he bought back from America during our previous road trip. Using the same proportions, the Knob Creek cocktail had a much stronger and deeper taste. Hubs liked that better, and I stuck with my Orchard House lychee cocktail.
It was fun making my own cocktail. I might raid his whisky collection again.
