The Sexton Single Malt Irish Whiskey Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B-

The Sexton Irish Single Malt
(Credit: Richard Thomas)

Irish Whiskey is booming, which explains why we have The Sexton to a large degree. Brought to us by Proximo Spirits, it’s an Irish single malt drawn from sourced stock (coming from the “North Coast of Ireland”), aged for approximately four years in a mix of first- to fourth-fill Oloroso Sherry butts. It’s a creation of Alex Thomas, a hand with 13 years experience (mostly at Bushmills) and one of the very few women in Ireland to claim the title of Master Blender. The bottle is certainly eye-catching, a lovely, squat thing with Victorian-cum-Gothic styling, although the contents within are a relatively mild 40% ABV.

The Whiskey
When you read that bit about the range of Oloroso Sherry butts being first- to fourth-fill, I imagine the skeptic in you thought “mostly third- and fourth-fill then.” But the coloring suggests otherwise, because a merely four-ish year old malt whiskey shouldn’t have a coppered look without coming into contact with some Sherry juice and some wood fibers that aren’t spent. The Sexton has it, so I imagine the balance of the cask stock is pretty good. A swish and coat yielded a curtain of tears.

A sniff gave me a sweet whiskey, full of malty honey, with a hint of raisins and a note of dried straw. The flavor profile is pretty straight forward, but sweet and (despite the 40% ABV) packing some decent body on it. Marzipan and honey are accented by raisins, dry straw and peppery wood. The finish is much lighter, running mainly in the vein of woodiness, and trailing off after just a short while.

The thing to keep in mind about The Sexton is this: Irish Whiskey has a minimum aging period of three years, and this single malt is just half a step past that. It’s youthful whiskey, so your expectations should be in tune with youthful whiskey. In that light, it checks more than a few good boxes… and besides which, it’s very reasonably priced.

The Price
A survey of online retailers revealed this item generally goes for between $25 and $30 a bottle.