Amrut Fusion brings big buttery tropical sweet but sneaks in potent spice, peat, and heat

I've been in love with Amrut for a while.  Recently I had a great tasting of much of the Amrut line at Whisky Live NY.  Last weekend I reviewed Amrut Cask Strength and Amrut Cask Strength Peated and gave them five stars and four stars respectively.  However I've had an unopened bottle of Amrut Fusion sitting on the shelf for months now.  That had to end so I cracked it and have been dramming it all week.  What's special about Fusion; what makes it virtually unique in the whisky world, is that it is made with both Scottish peated malt and also Indian unpeated malt.  The combination of malts made on two continents and both peated and sweet was unique - at least, to my knowledge, until High West came out with Campfire (for that unique combination of US Rye and Scottish peated malt, See Tim Read's excellent post).  Combining peated and unpeated malts should make the peat more subtle and produce a sweeter mix.  Using Indian malt should add some more of the stunning Amrut spice scented flavor profile that it's hot tropical rapid maturation brings.

Of course Amrut is pretty special - not only because their single malts are delighting reviewers all over - but also because India is a land of adulterated rums being sold as whisky and Amrut is changing the paradigm.  Last week Canadian whisky blogger Jason Debly wrote a brilliant review of Fusion that highlights the Indian whisky market, some images from the advertising of those crazy rum adulterations, and what's special about Fusion.  Tasting notes of those adulterations (and Amrut's expressions, including Fusion) and also a great account of Amrut's Ashok Chockalingham's show is British whisky blogger Billy Abbott's great post about an Amrut Whisky Squad tasting dinner.  Just two days ago the Whisky Drinker blog posted news that John Distilleries, another Indian distiller was introducing a single malt. United Distilleries is also producing malts.  Clearly Amrut's success crafting single malts is beginning to shift things in Indian distilling.  The extraordinary flavor profile of Amrut's malts might influence things more widely in the whisky world as well.  I just noticed that Master of Malt described Amrut's Two Continents whisky with the following copy:


"Interesting this one -matured for part of its life in India, then shipped over to Europe for the final three years. An interesting experiment, and one which makes us wonder if the reverse might not be coming soon (whiskies being shipped from Scotland to India to undergo accelerated maturation). Couldn't call it 'Scotch Whisky' of course, but who'd give a monkeys' if you could buy spirit from some of Scotland's most iconic distilleries 'flash matured' for 3 years in India's sunny climes? Just a thought."
http://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/amrut/amrut-two-continents-whisky/

So, Amrut is, strikingly, making a dramatic impact all over the whisky world far beyond India's shores.  This innovative spirit is well represented in Fusion's dramatically unconventional mash bill.


So, how does Amrut Fusion taste?  Here are my tasting notes, after several days of tasting:

Amrut Fusion 50% abv

Color: Dark gold / light amber with olive tints (Amrut color)

Nose: Spirity sweet heat then dust, buttered toffee, creme broulle, nutmeg, vanilla, cardamom and a little bitter orange.  It's a rich and inviting nose.  Curiously missing is a sense of the peat.

Entry is toffee sweet with Amrut's lovely characteristic honey, butter, toffee, ripe banana flavors.  The mid-palate expands big with spicy black pepper and a rich butterscotchy malt foundation.  The turn to the finish is dominated by oak, sandalwood incense, and some mild peat smoke which evolves on the palate to tar and ash flavors in the finish with tannins drying.

As you continue to sip Fusion the spiciness and peaty quality builds in intensity. Towards the end of the dram the fiery peat which began very subtly has become a powerful sensation and fiery peppery heat has your mouth buzzing as if you had eaten Vindaloo. This is pretty unusual. 50% abv (100 proof US) is strong - but doesn't fully explain this fiery spicy quality. It's something special about Amrut peated expressions.

A few drops of water ups the peppery and the dark in the nose. It also amps up the toffee banana sweetness in the entry and the mid-palate heat to Scotch Bonnet levels. The sweet and hot suits me. It's a lovely spicy dish with some subtle but very distinct sharp peat tar kick at the finish.

Bottom line, a stunning dram that manages to seem almost sweet and mild at first; but is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  It builds quietly, until later you realize that you are rocking to a monster flavor profile.  It has a few rough edges, and isn't what you'd call "elegant" or "refined" - but it's a stunning new flavor profile that succeeds brilliantly.

Borderline five stars.

****

Amrut Cask Strength Peated is a volcanic hot mess of fierce heat, tropic sweet, and reeky peat.

 Some Amrut is made with Scottish malt, some with Indian malt, and some with both.  According to the label, this version is made with "the finest imported peated Scottish barley".  Mashed, distilled, and matured 3000 feet up in the hills of Bangalore, Amrut Peated Cask Strength is a mix of East and West.  As a man who loves big peated whiskies, and having loved the Amrut Single Malt Cask Strength last night, I was pretty sure I was going to love this right off the bat.  Funny, it didn't turn out that way, at least at first...

Amrut Single Malt Cask Strength Peated 62.8% abv Batch No. 4 Jan. 2010

Light amber with olive tints

(50ml miniature from Ledger's Liquor in Berkeley, CA)

Color:  Light Amber with olive tints

Nose: iodine, putty, seaweed, salt air and solvent clashes with bitter citrus, vanilla sweetness, and rich damp loam.  It's rich and sweet at the same time it's industrial and maritime.  This is an unfamiliar combination and it's both off-putting (at least initially), but also fascinating; growing on me more and more with each glass.

Entry is honeyed rich with toffee.  But phenol and peat reek kick in at the turn to the mid-palate and explode with spicy heat and tangy citrus bite.  As the mid-palate expands burning earthy peat, redolent of soil joins the lush sweetness and evolves into dense tar and ash.  As this fades into the finish astringency develops, merging with the ashy bitterness of the peat.  It's like richly honeyed lemon tea hovering above burning earth with road tar, cigar ash, and complicated tropical herbs and spices.  At the end oak and peat combine into a burnt sandalwood perfumed bittersweet complexity.

My first reaction was close to revulsion.  The rich and fruity sweetness combined in an unfamiliar way with the fierce intensity of the peat and I found the combination odd and unpleasant.  However, sip after sip as I worked my way into the glass it gradually won me over.  The complexity and richness are nothing to be afraid of.  The sweetness - the honey combine with the rich wood tannins into tea flavors.  The earthy peat into tar, smoke and ash in much the way of peated Scotches (yet this combination of rich tropical sweet and rich peat is unlike any Scotch).  The combination is beguiling once you allow yourself to be seduced, like slipping into an initially too hot tub, first pain, then blissful submission.

This is a big, fierce dram.  It needs extensive air to fully open up.  I found close to an hour was necessary.  It likes a few drops of water, and can tolerate more than a few drops.  The heat is intensified.  Spicy mid-palate heat become fierce cayenne level heat - but the sweetness and floral qualities are amplified too and the peat is rendered better integrated into the sweet.  I honestly can't tell which I prefer (with water or without).  Citrus, earth, floral aromas, harsh industrial peaty garage aromas, seaweed, salt and sea airs, sweet tea, sandalwood incense, on and on different facets unfold and vie for dominance.  What a donnybrook!  What a wild mess of a dram.  People are going to love or hate this one with violent passions.  Where will you fall?  I don't know, I straddled both sides of the fence, initially hating it and then ending up loving it.  What a wild ride!

****

Amrut Cask Strength brings sweet fire to tropical heat

Gold with olive tints

Located in Bangalore, deep in the South of India - a tropical location on the coast of the Indian Ocean, Amrut's location is hot and humid. Maturation is rapid in the tropical heat.  More importantly, Armut has upped the quality of their offerings over recent years with phenomenal results, crafting a house style with a flavor signature that is (as reported in Dominic Roskrow's excellent distillery visit piece in Connosr): "rich, dripping in vanilla, citrus, and honey".  They have since added a range of expressions that include a range of fascinating wood finishes, peated malts, malts from multiple continents, and various strengths.  Amrut Single Malt Cask Strength is a cask strength example of the base expression.

On a quick visit to my Father, I visited Ledger's Liquors in Berkeley, California. Among their astounding collection of whiskies from all over the world I found some lovely Amrut 50ml miniatures.  I also had a great conversation about whisky and spirits with Ed.  It's the most fantastic liquor store I've seen a while and an unexpected treasure down in the Berkeley flats.

Amrut Single Malt Cask Strength 61.8% Batch 2 January, 2010

Color: Gold with olive tints - almost light amber.

Nose: A spirity nose rich in vanilla, spices (turmeric, fenugreek), melon, musk, leather, fresh sawn oak, and mint

A big whisky like this needs extensive air time.  I gave a full 30 minutes of airing before beginning the critical tasting as it kept opening up over time.  On entry: Wham!  A massive and sweet explosion of the Amrut signature flavors of dust, richly honeyed toffee, and overripe banana. There is a subtle but pervasive orange rind aspect, rich freshly sawn oak, and hints of mint at the close of the mid-palate. The finish is long but easy, malty and gentle with oak and caramel.  The lingering aftertaste is similar to the distant echoes of having finished a butterscotch sucking candy.

Adding a few drops of water is an obvious thing to do with whisky of this enormous strength and power. The effects on the nose are slight: some mint notes emerge and the banana and toffee loosen, enlarge, and smear a bit. On the tongue, however, the water turns the toffee sugars and bananas into a rich bananas foster experience. Spicy heat is amped up into the explosive cayenne levels at mid-palate. As the sweetness of the opening and the fiery heat of the mid-palate merge there are sweet spices like cloves and nutmeg. The finish remains long and full of gentle herbal bitters and a cleansing astringency from wood tannins.


A tour de force of flavor density and richness. Amrut has achieved a superb balance in the midst of an effusive flavor balance that threatens to go over the top.  Amrut has rightfully put India among the great whisky producing regions of the world.

*****