1/Climbing the Hellyers Road range. Two Tasmanian rungs, one step apart. Hellyers Road 7 Peated, $139 this week. The Journeyman 8, $150. One peated and younger; one a year older, no peat. The question for each step: what does going up get you, and what does the younger bottle give the older one's drinker? Let's climb.
2/Step up to the Journeyman 8 at $150: a year's more age for $11. Those ex-bourbon casks give banana lollies and creme caramel up top, black bread and savoury stock underneath. Going up, it gives a 7 Peated drinker about 99% of what their own bottle does. Coming back down, the 7 Peated gives a Journeyman 8 drinker about 98% of what theirs does, for 93% of its price. What changes is mostly less of the wine-cask fruit, and that one year.
3/So, a yes for each. The 7 Peated if peat's your thing: light, sweet, an ashy finish like drawing on a cigar. The Journeyman 8 if you'd swap that wine-cask fruit for something drier and more savoury. At about $5.45 and $5.88 a standard drink, each pour at home sits under a $13 pint. More is not always better. Both earn a yes; take the one that's already yours.
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