Cotswolds Founder’s Choice
Official Cask Strength Release | 60.5% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Cotswolds second release still stands up
Time for making good choices and less excuses
I’ve been sitting on a small collection of half complete reviews for some time and have been struggling to get anything into our golden submissions folder in the Dramface Drive.
There always seems to be so many small reasons and distractions that pop up as I sit in front of the keyboard and, hand on my heart, just as I key in the start of this sentence I have to pause and go hold my distressed two year old’s hand as she drifts back to sleep. However as I laid down, head on the hard floor, hand twisted through the thin bars of the cot bed, I tried to list out these reasons in my head.
The first excuse that sprung to mind would be that I seem to have become a magnet to all bugs and viruses that come calling over the last couple of years. It’s like I had the words: “open for vacancy” scrawled on my forehead. In the last six months alone I’ve been hit by coughs, colds, the other virus beginning with C and a flu that lasted more than three weeks. Yet, this is a pretty weak excuse. We all know that 9 out of 10 doctors agree a good dram can be the best remedy when feeling a little run down. Feel free to check that ‘statistic’, in fact I encourage that you do and read this article on WebMD.
My next dwindling excuse is a little stronger and something that may have more validation: Time or lack thereof. My life at the moment feels as if I’m running three full-time jobs, a couple of part-time jobs and then passion project slices on top. Yet, if I stop to take a minute, it’s not because the currency of time is in shorter supply, but maybe I’m not always spending it in the most valuable way. So after a couple of sentences this excuse has flipped around to become a new mantra, swap out the doom-scrolling social media; do more rewarding activities.
This lead to my final thread of this self-created barrier - and before you think this whisky review should be less “poor me” and more “pour me a drink,” I hope to use this one as a slick segue into the real whisky talk. This last excuse is the thief of joy itself; comparison.
I’m often in awe of the high quality content that’s produced on Dramface. From awesome articles, thought-inducing features and the passion-led podcast, the standards are pretty high. While the WhatsApp group of writers is a digital den of supportive, encouraging and enthusiastic people, it can still be quite a mental mountain of pressure. Yet never the pressure of deadlines, no word counts and no whippings from Wally - rather the pressure of comparing my contribution to others.
I don’t like receiving compliments or any form of “pity party” (my wife calls it emotionally vacant but I think she’s just flirting with me) and I’ve always found it important to not only know your strengths and weakness, but own them as you carve out your own unique journey.
So it’s time I took my own medicine, understanding I may not quite be able to weave a story smoothly on the page or capture the essence of an entire whisky experience in a single snap. If people are after that, there are many a Dramfacer who can provide it. All I can provide is my own take and style when it comes to these whisky reviews.
I’m taking this approach to compare a whisky, one I’ve always only compared to its peers, the Cotswolds Founders Choice. See I told you, at a stretch, it does work as a segue.
I adore and have a pure unrelenting passion for Cotswolds Signature single malt whisky. The first whisky ever made in the Cotswolds always provides so much bang for its buck in the UK - sometimes selling for as low as £25. This love had to spread into their second whisky release, the Founders Choice. Yet, whenever I pour this, my eyes lock with the pheasant staring back at me from the label of their Signature release.
There are many reasons to compare these two bottles: both are from the same distillery, similar in age (while both being NAS) and matured in shaved, toasted and recharred (STR) red wine barrels. The marketing tells us how the Founders Choice lives up to it’s name with Dan Szor, the founder of Cotswolds distillery, selecting the barrels to make up this release. We can also see the big difference and that’s the hefty jump of an additional 14.5% ABV. This may lead us to see this as simply a cask strength release of their classic, but I wonder if there is more on offer here?
While the Founders Choice can easily be seen as a more prone to punch twin of the Signature, I’ll try to remove any comparisons for this review, moving forward to allow this bottle its own well-deserved time in the limelight.
Review
Cotswolds Founder’s Choice, English single Malt, Cask Strength, 60.5% ABV
£69 RRP (£52.65 paid) available everywhere
The deep navy blue label on the bottle pairs nicely not only with the slanted gold information stripe below, but also the striking auburn liquid inside. Proudly stating natural colour and non-chill filtered on the back label, there’s also a nod to Dr Jim Swan the pioneer of the STR cask who helped so many new distilleries on their way. With the beautifully etched pheasant cork providing a slightly underwhelming but deep pop from this half-consumed bottle, I’ll judge the liquid on its own merits.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Cotswolds second release still stands up
Nose
The first sniff hits me with sweet strawberries and a pleasant tingly-through-the-nose-hairs sensation - it’s as close as I would recommend you go to snorting sherbet straws. The sweet fruits are firmly in the centre of an Eton Mess that’s been served on top of an oak plank with the wood notes slowly seeping in.
The dense cereal, which seems consistent across the Cotswolds range, is present giving a wonderful jam on a thick slice of seeded wholemeal bread vibe which, fortunately for me, is also dripping in old school butter that your gran keeps in the fridge.
Stewed apples linger at the back behind a faint alcohol note which is more perfume than un-aged spirit. Certainly very enticing.
Palate
The first sip and that mighty 60.5% shows its face, yet not in a throat-gripping ethanol burn, but in flavour and density. It’s like swallowing a hot-from-the-oven cinnamon-laden apple crumble. There’s a real texture to each sip which I can only match in my brain to what savoury jelly crystals might taste like.
Embracing the flexibility of it being cask strength, the 3-4 drops of water I drip into my large measured glass elevates this experience to a whole new level and becomes so malty that it could have been knitted by nanas. Yet somehow among this density, fresher flavours float through; raspberries, mint and and cucumber water.
The Dregs
It may be a disservice to this whisky but I have to draw the connection to a well-made jug of Pimm’s brimming with fruit and vegetation. The finish leaves me with a warming sensation, mouth tingling as I slouch back in my chair with no desire to compare it to any other whisky.
If the notion of English whisky not being able to compete with scotch is still rumbling around in anyone's mind, this whisky could change that. Then again if you still believe that, maybe no world whisky could encourage your promiscuity.
With it taking to water better than any duck, I could be tempted to do the maths and work out how much further this bottle could be stretched providing a better comparison to the 46% Signature, in terms of value at least. But no. Instead I’m going to forget the numbers and like how, without a hint or irony, social media always tells us to just live in the moment.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. GG
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