I secured some regular 2015 Abyss and one bottle each of the Abyss aged in Cognac barrels and Rye Whiskey barrels. I had two other guys over last night and we split them. The barrel aged ones were sublime. Seductive. Smooth. Until the slight warming occurred in my throat, no indication of the alcohol content.
The regular Abyss was angular and had significantly more flavor punch than the barrel aged ones - which is to be expected.
They were all exceptionally good. The Cognac was bigger on cherry flavor than the others. One person said it was almost to the point of cough syrup. I didn’t think so and neither did the third guy.
The Rye Whiskey seemed to me to have less Whiskey character than I’d like, but the other two guys didn’t agree.
The regular Abyss was bigger in molasses than the other two.
All were big on chocolate, vanilla and licorice. All were great. The regular could ages for years. Highly recommend them all. Yes I had more than a typical buzz by the time they were done.
I thought the abyss has always been partially barrel aged. I remember a year where they blamed an infection on bad barrels. That infection actually made it awesome.
You are correct. I misspoke. However the other two had noticeably more of that silky smooth roundedness that is characteristic of barrel aged beers. There is no mention of time the regular is aged in bourbon or wine barrels, where the other two say they are aged for 12 months in their respective barrels.
Regular abyss is a blend of half barrel aged and half non-barrel aged. The barrel aged portion is a mix of bourbon barrels, pinot noir barrels and virgin oak barrels. It’s aged for twelve months in barrels.
This all sounds wonderful to me as I picked up 2 bottles of the regular last week to put away for next year if I can hold out that long. Maybe one now and one for later…