Better than Baileys? (Carolans Irish Cream Liqueur)

Member Name: Epiphany

Product:	Carolans Irish Cream Liqueur
Date:	16/07/01 (996 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Tastes nice

Disadvantages: Not as good as Baileys

I bet you knew I couldn’t stay off the sauce for long. I’m always willing to try out new creamy drinks and I’d heard of this one through DooYoo before, so I thought I would give it a go. Better than Baileys? We’ll see!!

Carolans (Finest) comes in a familiar looking brown glass bottle with a creamy coloured label. It sports the phrase “product of Ireland” and describes itself as “a blend of fresh Irish Cream, made-wine and honey”. What ‘made-wine’ is I am not sure, perhaps I will do a bit of investigating later [the most I found out was that made-wine seems to contain ‘coolers’, or at least this was what was suggested in passing by one web page I looked at!]. “Carolans comes from the Golden vale, the heart of Ireland’s dairy land”, very interesting. Apparently “the smoothness of Carolans comes from the subtle blending of fresh cream, made-wine and honey”, who would have guessed!

So the packaging is not spectacular, although the label on the back offers a free recipe leaflet if you write to;

T.J. Carolan and Son ltd,
Clonmel,
County Tipperary,
Ireland

I will be doing this shortly!

The only size bottle I have seen is 1L and this was priced at £7.98. Did you hear that? £7.98!!! If my memory serves me correctly you pay MORE than that for a 750ml bottle of Baileys, and it’s only about £2 more expensive than the 500ml bottle! It’s almost HALF the price of the same amount of Baileys!!! But perhaps cheap equates to BAD; Wee, I can tell you that in this case it doesn’t!

On opening the bottle, you are greeted with a smell of wine (to be quite honest, I can’t smell a thing now because I have been tucking into a glass whilst writing the introduction, but when I first opened the bottle, it did smell of wine!). Pouring it into the glass, it looks the same sort of creamy colour that you would
expect from the likes of Baileys et al but it seems to be ‘thinner’ in that the light shines through the liquid more, although not to the point you could describe it as opaque! Watery is probably a better description.

Now for the taste *looking at the glass* ah, I seem to have finished it! I’ll just have a little more, just so I can describe it accurately you understand! It’s very pleasant. The reaction of my neighbour last night was “fwooooooargh”, which I think loosely interpreted means “gosh, the taste of alcohol is very strong isn’t it?!”. And it is a little strong to taste, despite it containing a mere 14.5% alcohol by volume. Aside from the taste of alcohol, there is also a smooth creaminess but it reflects its look in not tasting THAT creamy, there is more of a hint than anything, without it being overpowering. It’s sweet, it’s possible to taste the honey slightly, but only in the first few tastes! The alcohol leaves a warm feeling in your mouth, and if you take a small gulp, this sensation can also be felt as it passes down your throat.

As I only bought this from Tesco yesterday (as an aside, it is now available from Asda too - what's it like?! At first I don't see it anywhere and now it is everywhere!), I haven’t tried it as a replacement for the Baileys in my Potent Milkshake, or in Hot Chocolate. I get the feeling that the less creamy texture will change the luxurious feel of both these drinks, and there will probably be a difference in taste too. It may well be just as nice, but in a different way.

As soon as I begin to play around and mix this drink I will update this opinion. Overall, I would recommend this drink if you like creamy liqueurs but can’t afford to splash out on Baileys (or any of my other favourite tipples for that matter!).

Summary: