Spoiler alert! As I’ve said before, the one-star review is hardest for me to write, because wishy-washy reviews don’t tend to make for compelling content. How many words can a person devote to “It was just okay?” Especially when you were left searching for something—anything—that could differentiate an otherwise milquetoast product?
The Starward Vitalis, on the other hand, joins that smaller list of one-star products that easily earn the rating through palpable, although perhaps not crushing disappointment.
We’ll start with Starward, the company: in general, they absolutely get a thumbs up from me. I have so far had two of their expressions, both of which I thought were very good, and especially tasty for the price: the “Two Fold” double grain whiskey (wheat and barley), and the Solera, which they mature in fortified wine barrels. Longer write-ups for another day, perhaps, but I’ve enjoyed my time with them. The two retail for about $30 and $70, respectively.
So along comes my birthday after a particularly grueling period of work, at which point I have the time and space to think about how I’d like to treat myself. Enter the Starward Vitalis: an expression made by the company to celebrate 15 years of operation by going all-out on what they think their whiskey should be, and as a means of honoring how far they’ve come. This seemed like a safe bet. In my heart of hearts, I was hoping to stumble onto a slightly cheaper Glenmorangie Signet.
“The Starward Vitalis tastes like young whisky in aggressive casks, with everything shouting at one another, but not enough to knock down the angularity.”
According to Starward, the Vitalis uses six different types of barrels in the making of the whisky. Most of them are red wine barrels that represent the backbone of their distillery-wide approach, but they’re also using tawny port barrels, bourbon, apera (first and second fill), and rum barrels. The spirit is aged between 4 and 10 years in these barrels before being combined together, so let’s split the difference and say the stuff is on average about 7 years old.
Perhaps part of the letdown with the Vitalis is that particular kind of disappointment that comes from getting exactly what you were promised. What’s in the glass is not particularly cohesive, nor compelling. The math in maturing a spirit in six different types of barrels doesn’t translate into six times the woodiness, but boy howdy does Vitalis seem oak-heavy.
The most distinctive taste to emerge from the Vitalis is chocolate. The distillery’s notes include not just chocolate, but roasted coffee beans and cedar. I pick it up as high-percent cacao and the kind of cocoa powder one finds atop fancy cakes. We’re in the same ballpark, but I’m a little less charitable: the chocolate I’m tasting has a kind of dustiness, chalkiness, and a pervasive bitterness I can’t seem to shake.
There’s sophistication here, sure. Starward’s red wine finishing produces ample fruit in the form of strawberry and blackberry. In the finish, there’s a little peppermint, too. The nose has a lovely aroma of hazelnut and banana: that is, when you’re not being absolutely nipped by the alcohol.
I can only speculate at what’s happening here that I dislike, and I’m sure people in the industry would be appalled at the boundless depths of my ignorance for someone who has the gall to write about spirits. That said, it certainly tastes like I’m dealing with young whisky in aggressive casks, with everything shouting at one another, but not enough to get away from the distillate’s angularity at this age.
To me, the Vitalis has all of the hallmarks of being motivated by whether you can do something as opposed to whether you should be doing it. I’ll cede the point that it must be challenging to start putting your stuff in all of these weirdo barrels only five years into your company’s operations, when you don’t really know how it’s all going to turn out. There’s a leap of faith here that runs parallel to the overall gamble of giving up your day job to chase a dream, as David Vitale did in starting this whole shebang. Credit due to Starward for having the guts to roll the dice.
Unfortunately, as a consumer, I feel like I’ve gotten duped into paying for someone else’s party. It tastes like a recipe that didn’t quite come together, and it’s especially disappointing for what should be the best version of what Starward has to offer. It isn’t bad, but I really don’t like feeling like I should have spent my $100 by purchasing the next two cheapest whiskies in the company’s portfolio.
