Notes from a Tasting: Exclusive Casks from Total Wine & More

In February, David Stirk's Creative Whisky Company (CWC) released a series of single casks exclusively through Total Wine & More, via CWC's Exclusive Casks label.  On February 16th, Southern California Whiskey Club held an event that allowed folks to taste eight of the dozen or so Exclusive Casks.  I was unable to attend the event but was able to arrange getting samples of the eight single malts.  (Ethics note: I paid the event fee in order to receive these samples.)

Many of these bottlings are still available at Total Wine & More's California stores.  Unlike single casks sold exclusively at other California retailers, this set received nearly no hype online.  As you'll see below, I don't think my notes count as hype, but I don't think it would hurt to get some digital ink running in case you've been eyeing these chaps.  Due to the size of the samples I'll be using a grade range (as I did for the last tasting) rather than a number rating.

I sampled these 1/2 ouncers here at my dining room table, a pair at a time, over a two hour period.  During this tasting, two mysteries arose, one I can solve and one I cannot.

1. Invergordon Single Grain Whisky, 25 year old 1988.  378 bottles, 53.9% ABV
Color - Light amber
Nose - Light, bright vanilla. A little grassy. Chicken stock, anise, and orange juice.
Palate - All coconut and caramel.  Coconut flavored rum.  Very pungent though somewhat thinly textured.
Finish - More coconut! Then crème brûlée with a little sea salt. Lengthy.

Thoughts: The nose is the best part, substantial enough to almost fool one into thinking that it was a Lowland malt. How one feels about this whisky depends how one feels about coconut, both the real and artificial flavoring versions.  It was a bit too Malibu Rum for me.
Grade range: C+

2. Auchentoshan 13 year old 2000. 488 bottles, 53.6% ABV
Color - Pale amber
Nose -  Twizzlers, cheddar cheese, and hospital disinfectant.  Yep.  Kinda fleshy, new carpet, paint, cinnamon.  After a lot of air.....candy and puss.
Palate - Goes from sweet to grainy. Candy canes without mint.  Barley and notebook paper.  Coconuts again.
Finish - Supermarket cake frosting, cherry lollipops, very sweet. Gets weirder as it goes.

Thoughts: Here was the first mystery.  I've found many indie Auchentoshans to be weird -- there's an AD Rattray one that was all roots and clay, which I adored -- but this one is not my type of weird.  Here's the catch, the LAWS guys loved it.  But I don't recognize most of their notes.  Did something weird happen to my sample?
Grade range: C-

3. Glen Spey 11 year old 2002. 186 bottles, 56.7% ABV
Color - Light amber
Nose - All kinds of American oak and (relatedly) lots of butter.  Then butterscotch, black licorice, cardamom, and flower blossoms.
Palate - Pleasant, lightly sweet, lightly creamy.  Here's the oak again: vanilla, butter, and caramel.  A little meaty savoriness and sweet spices.
Finish - Geraniums. Salty and savory. Some tartness.

Thoughts: Could have been of interest if not for all of that aggressive oak.  This is a CWC song I've sung twice before (here and here).
Grade range: C+/B-

4. Ben Nevis 14 year old 1998. 258 bottles, 53.2% ABV
Color - Light gold
Nose - Leather. Very dry sherry, but a funky moldy old school sherry.  Or, is it finally time for this blog to use the ultimate snoot word......rancio?  Then bacon, hay, burnt grains, cardamom.  Then floral soap (but good!), industrial grease, and grapefruit peel.  Yes, that bizarre.
Palate - Strange and herbal.  Cannabis meets orange peel, and it gets more candied with time.  And there has to be peat in here -- at least Bowmore levels.  Very silky texture.
Finish - More peatiness. Light toffee sweetness. Hazelnuts and walnuts. Intensely herbal.

Thoughts: Wut?  Very very strange.  There's the moldy sherry, tons of herbs, the Springbank industrial character, and peat.  There's another review of this whisky online and it lists bourbony characteristics and no peat.  So, seriously, what the f**k?  How could this be a sample issue?  Thus this is mystery #2.  I know that some Ben Nevises have noticeable peating and I've smelled the industrial and bacon thing in the other Ben Nevis I've tried.  Also, this bottling is the most difficult to find of all of these eight as it has sold out at almost every Total Wine location.  Ben Nevis selling out quickly?  I can't be the only one who found this to his liking.  So I bought a bottle.
Grade range: B+/A-

5. Arran 16 year old 1997. 595 bottles, 51.2% ABV
Color - Rosy gold
Nose - Cleaner sherry than in the Ben Nevis, sticky toffee and chocolate. Toasted barley and almonds. Pine sap and beef jerky.
Palate - Perky malt shows through the sherry. Toffee and taffy. Peach and menthol. Medium sweetness. Creamy in texture and taste.
Finish - Sherry is subtle. Sugar and pepper. Marshmallow and peach.

Thoughts: I was happy that the sherry didn't choke out the malt, but nothing really superb occurs otherwise.  I prefer the younger official sherry cask I tried this year.
Grade range: B-/B

6. Bruichladdich 22 year old 1991. 222 bottles, 50.6% ABV
Color - Medium gold
Nose - Orange glaze, dried apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, golden raisins, pears......it keeps going......vanilla ice cream, pencils, and honey.  It's purdy.
Palate - Lightly floral, lightly citric, lightly vanilla-ed, lightly tropical fruit-ed, lightly buttery. Some shisha, too.
Finish - Apricots, vanilla, mild sugars, lychee, and bubblegum.

Thoughts: Prettiest of the bunch. Probably no real flaws, but after the lovely nose, the palate was sort of vague.  Also, please see my notes in the final paragraph about a potential issue.
Grade range: B/B+

7. Glen Garioch 23 year old 1989. 198 bottles, 54.1% ABV
Color - Amber
Nose - Pencils, dried grass and grains, light caramel. White fruits emerge after some time. Sugar cookies, subtle rubber and herbs.
Palate - Tons of barley, toasty and bready. A suggestion of peat smoke. Tart, salty, gets grassier and sweeter with time.
Finish - Smoke increases here, though more like wood or cigar smoke.  Mango and sugar.

Thoughts: Everything is very delicate. The finish is the best part.  The barley forwardness makes it feel more old school than most of these other malts.
Grade range: B

8. Bowmore 11 year old 2002. 596 bottles, 56.8% ABV
Color - Five beer piss
Nose - Stinky skunky peat encased in a load of American oak (weird vanilla and slightly-off butter, almost chemically so).  Mossy, baseball card ink, cinnamon candy.
Palate - Very sugary peat. Vanilla, hay, hot cinnamon spiciness.
Finish - All peat and sugar.  Of significant length.

Thoughts: Sigh. It has the potential of being a half step better than the K&L Exclusive Malts Bowmore due to its brutish peat, but that oak again...
Grade range: C+/B-

A final ranking:
Ben Nevis 14yo**
Bruichladdich 22yo**
Glen Garioch 23yo
Arran 16yo
Bowmore 11yo
Glen Spey 11yo
Invergordon 25yo
Auchentoshan 13yo**

** -- So, mysteries sit at the top and the bottom of the rankings.  With a lot of hindsight, I'm noticing that my Bruichladdich notes are very similar to LAWS's Auchentoshan notes.  Perhaps the wrong whisky was poured into two of my sample bottles.  If that was the case, then what the heck was in my Auchentoshan?  Was that the Bruichladdich?  Meanwhile, there's the strange instance of Ben Nevis.  That was a mystery I was willing to pay to solve.  And now that my full bottle has been emptied, I'll report my findings in Wednesday's post...

Clubbin' Canadian: The Taste Off (current edition vs 1982 vs 1986)

I laid out the introduction for this Taste Off on Tuesday.  Because I foresee this being a large enough post, I'm going to just say "click here for the intro" and move on to the tasting!

During the week preceding this tasting, I'd opened and sampled each one of these in order to make sure I would not be drinking from the top of each bottle.  In my personal experience, the first rip from a bottle never shows a whisk(e)y in its best form.  Much like wine, it can be its tightest and most austere at first blush.  Then on Taste Off Day 1, I sampled each of them neatly starting from the 2013 and working backward, then moved between them comparing and contrasting.  On Day 2, I fashioned highballs (1:2, whisky:club soda) from each, comparing and contrasting.  As you can probably gauge, I drank a lot of Canadian Club over a short period of time for the sake of this post.  You're welcome?

[Please note: The excise stamp actually represents the date of the whisky's youngest distillation. Thus some changes have been made to this post to update this information.]

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Canadian Club, bottled in 2013

Code L3282

Its predecessors (even the bottles from just a couple years earlier) listed a 6-year-old age statement on their front labels.  But this most recent version removed the age statement, its official website stating that it is "aged longer than the 3 years required by law".  So......three years and one day?  Anyway, it has also picked up the name "1858" representing the distillery's first year.  And yeah, it is in a dark brown plastic bottle.

NEAT
Color - Reddish bronze
Nose - Vanilla first, then a little bit of rye spice. That's followed by black cherry syrup, orange candy, plaster, and scalp (yes, you read that correctly).  All of these notes are very distant.
Palate - Vanilla vodka, mostly.  Then some caramel, sugar, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, and ginger. Not much else going on.
Finish - Grain and heat.  Something herbal meets paint fumes.  Bland, then off-putting.

HIGHBALL
Caramel, corn syrup, and sugar.  Aside from a strange bitter note in the finish it's inoffensive.

COMMENTS:
The other two CCs, as you'll note below, are very pale while this one was strangely dark, as if Club had taken a note from Johnnie Walker and dumped in the e150a colorant.  The nose was better than I had expected.  The palate was not terrible, though it was barely whisky.  Then everything went to hell in the finish.  Nonetheless, this was a full step better than the hideous 2004 bottling I reviewed two years ago.  Best served as a highball.

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Canadian Club, DISTILLED in 1986

Like the 2013, it's a 200mL bottle but that is where the similarities end with the vessel and the liquid.  The bottle is made of sturdy brown glass with "Canadian Club" etched along each side (see pic at the top of the post).  The orange Canadian excise seal (which denotes the year the whisky's youngest ingredient) was intact before I opened the bottle.  And at the bottom of the impressively spartan front label is the statement, "This Whisky is Six Years Old".  Note: this whisky was distilled before Hiram Walker & Sons was bought by Allied.

NEAT
Color - Amber
Nose - Very dusty and spicy at first.  Herbal and floral too.  Then some armagnac, lychee, pencil shavings, and tropical fruit flavored candy.  Strawberry bubblegum notes emerge after some air.
Palate - Lots of sea salt and caramel. Lemon-lime soda. Hint of chocolate. Slightly bitter, slightly papery. Very good mouthfeel, but watered down flavor.
Finish - Some big cereal grains, followed by chocolate and caramel. Gets a little burnt at the end.

HIGHBALL
A little grainy, a little woody (tee-hee). Much of the neat palate stays intact. Mild and refreshing.

COMMENTS:
The palate and finish are decent, and it makes for a good highball.  But it's its nose that's a joy and it can take a little air.  This pour was actually from just above mid bottle.  At the top of the bottle, I thought the whisky was basically Canadian Club, but 10% better (because that's a thing).  But after directly comparing it to the current CC, I've discovered that this is a much different whisky...

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Canadian Club, DISTILLED in 1982

This bottle is a full liter.  I have to say, I'm big fan of these old fashioned labels.  Aside from the Windsor crest, it's all a bunch of plain but informative script.  And, like the 1986, it's six years old, in a glass bottle, and had an intact orange excise seal before I got to it.

NEAT
Color - Light gold
Nose - At first it's orange lollipops and cherry lollipops and rock candy.  Then there are fresh peaches and lychee.  It's fruity, floral, and spicy -- like a little bit of rye mixed into a Highland malt.
Palate - If I'd tasted this blind, I would have thought this was Powers Gold Label.  Thick caramel sauce in front with vanilla trailing.  Then peppery rye, mint, and lemons.  With some air it does get slightly sour and some sawdust slips in.
Finish - Big and round.  Caramel, mint, lemon-lime soda, with a slight bitterness.

HIGHBALL
A massive vanilla bomb, as if it's carbonated vanilla extract.  Some of the rye shines through the club soda.  Nice and refreshing.

COMMENTS:
While the '86's nose was more complex, this one may have been more focused.  But the palate was its strongest point, and was the most flavorful of the three.  As a highball it's kind of outrageous, so I must test it out further.  See more of my conclusions below.

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CONCLUSIONS:
While the 1982 and 1986 are very much related, they must be a very different recipe than the 2013.  There's just nothing connecting the current version to its elders other than the name.  And even though these may have changed a tiny bit after sitting in the bottle for 20-25 years, they wouldn't have transformed in such an extreme manner.  There's a little something extra in the '82's palate and it was slightly darker in color than the '86.  Since Whisk(e)y Glutsville was hitting every nation in the 1980s, I wonder if the "1982" has a little bit of older stock in the mix.  Otherwise they were including richer barrels in the blend.

I'm going to attempt to get another bottle of the '82.  While I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's an A or B+ whisky, its quality-price-ratio appeals to me during these 90+ degree Octobers and Novembers.  The '86 is good enough for me to wish that the current version kept its recipe/makeup, but I will probably have had my fill once the 200mL is emptied.  The 2013 is better than the truly awful 2004 (whose 59 point rating seems generous in hindsight), but I don't have a whole lotta interest in finishing the bottle.  Perhaps I shall blend it.

RATINGS

2013 bottling:

Availability - The new version will be more available as the previous one sells out

Pricing - 200mL: $4-$7; 750mL: $12-$18

Rating - 70

1986 bottling:

Availability - Happy hunting! Look for the orange paper seal.

Pricing - This 200mL was $4.99

Rating - 79

1982 bottling:

Availability - Happy hunting! Look for the orange paper seal.

Pricing - This 1L was $23ish

Rating - 84

Clubbin' Canadian: An Intro

(source)

No, not him.

Nor him. Sorry.

This.

Inspired by posts from bloggers Arok (bourbonguy) and Joshie (sipology), I've decided to end this run of blend reviews with a Canadian Club Taste Off.  For much of my drinking life Canadian Club was synonymous with "Canadian Whisky".  To me it stood in for the entire category, like Jameson's does for Irish Whiskey for quite a lot of folks.  Over the last three years, I've tried a number of Canadian whiskies (all blends, I'll admit) and I can't say that any have inspired me to buy a full bottle.  But after reading the blog posts by Arok and Joshie, then happening upon a pair of interesting finds, I decided to give Canadian Club another try.

A quick history lesson:  After distilling vinegar for his grocery stores for a number of years, Hiram Walker began distilling whisky in 1854 in Detroit, not Canada.  But since Canada provided cheaper real estate and materials, he invested in building an official distillery across the river, near Windsor, Ontario, a few years later.  A number of years later, his whisky gained the "Club" moniker, since it was being slung in gentleman's clubs.  The word "Canada" made its way onto the front label in 1890, setting the product apart from the Scotches, Irishes, and bourbons on the market.  Once national prohibition hit, Walker merged with Gooderham & Worts to become Hiram Walker - Gooderham & Worts (what a name).  After that, the company became part of the acquisitions game: In 1987 HW-G&W was bought by Allied Lyons (which, itself, was the result of a merger), which later became Allied Domecq after another merger several years later.  After buying out Allied in 2005, Pernod Ricard sold off the Allied brands that conflicted with their own.  Canadian Club would have bumped heads with Seagram's, so CC was sold to Fortune Brands.  Six years later Fortune Brands was split up and Canadian Club went to Beam, Inc.

Over the past decade Canadian Club has wiggled its way back into the public sphere, thanks to the very fictional Don Draper and the occasional cheeky advertising campaign (see pic on the right).  Sadly, drinking Club will not make you look like Jon Hamm.  Hell, it won't even make you look like Harry Crane.  But for this Luddite, seeing the old bottle labels on Mad Men made me wonder what the whisky actually tasted like during (non-fiction) previous decades.

I tried a 2004 bottling two years back and found it to be an awful chemical slurry.  But why stop there, you know?  During recent dusty scouting trips, I found bottles from 1986 (200mL) and 1982 (1L) with fully intact tax seals. (In my travels I've also seen two other labels from the late-'80s-early-'90s, but I decided that a line needed to be drawn for now.) What was actually more difficult was finding a current 200mL. There are plenty of bottles from the Aughts, but rarely something from the teens around here. Luckily(?), I found one from 2013.

That 2004 I'd tried was a plastic bottle and after drinking the whisky inside, I was concerned that something from the brown plastic had leached into the drink.  So I was very happy to find that the '82 and '86 bottles were made of glass and had excellent fill levels.  The current bottle is plastic again.  So it goes.

Since this post is a long enough read as is, I will be posting the full Taste Off results tomorrow.  Tune in, click over, drink up, and enjoy!

NOT Single Malt Report: Usquaebach Old-Rare blended whisky

First off I'd like to thank JLR for this sample.  We did a sample swap in May of 2013 when we were both experiencing very difficult personal circumstances.  But since then, between our two families, we've had three tremendous little blessings.  As I write this Mathilda rolls around in her crib, trying to swallow her feet.

Until today, I had no idea that this Usquaebach Old-Rare was a $130+ whisky.  Yeah, it has a curious flagon and all that, but what the crap?

The scarce amount of online information about this whisky and its company is odd in the current whisky climate.  Partially it's a good thing because most whisky producers are larding up the whisky internets with marketing, marketing, and marketing.  But it's also not a great thing because this is a $130+ blend with no official description or explanation.  Only large well established brands can sell mystery malarkey for three figures.  So why would someone want to buy this whisky?  For its flagon?  You can get a handmade flagon for less at Etsy or Flagonland (not a thing).

Go ahead, google "Cobalt brands" and/or "Usquaebach Old Rare". Cobalt Brands is a New Jersey importer who may (or may not) be getting help from Douglas Laing with the blending part of things.  The whisky had somewhat of cult-ish following back in the '70s and '80s but that was when it was owned by a different now-defunct company.  Cobalt, who bought the brand not too long ago, sent John Hansell a press release in 2009 full of weird errors which they appear to have never addressed.  Overall, the company and whisky information is all kind of jumbled and I'm still not sure why the whisky is so expensive.  Because it's "Old-Rare" and 225yearsoldohmygod!  Sorry, I'm reaching.

Brand: Usquaebach

Ownership: Cobalt Brands

Type: Scotch Blended Whisky

Age: not stated (no, it isn't 225 years old)
Blend: malt and grain whiskies (there might be 41 Highland malts involved)

Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Chill-filtered? ???

Caramel Coloring? ???

HIGHBALL ...... nah, I'm not going to make a highball out of a triple digit (price, not age, dude) whisky.

NEAT
The color is yellow gold.  The nose starts with anise and mothballs, then limes and lemons.  The oak seems more toasted than charred, likely American by birth.  There's an herbal twist, maybe coriander/cilantro and mint.  Cassia "cinnamon" sticks.  After some time in the glass, the whisky develops floral perfume notes and hints of papaya.  Overall it's maltier than any of the non-Green Johnnie Walkers and the caramel note is mostly under control.  But there's also a substantial chlorine note that then carries over into the palate, where it expands further.  There's some alcohol bite that follows.  A brief stone fruit sweetness gradually becomes orange candy, then there's a bit of bitterness and some spearmint.  Vanilla ice cream from the big clear plastic buckets.  But the biggest note I keep finding is a dusty moldy mothball waft reminiscent of an old lady's closet.  The medium length finish stays in the old lady's closet -- a peeping tom of a whisky?  The chlorine returns.  Vanilla and caramel emerges.

Hmm.  Again, the nose wins.  It shows off the possibility of the presence of mature Highland malt, though not that old unless the casks were eighth-fill.  But at the same time, there's a lot of super young stuff floating around (thus the lack of age statement), especially the chlorine and cinnamon.  So, while there may be old whisky in the blend there's also a definite quantity of young whisky which tosses the blend out of balance.

So why the high price?  The vessel must be the excuse.  The whisky inside is as completely unknown as the company who put it in there.  The drink isn't a complete mess; as already mentioned, the nose is good, almost great.  And there definitely seems to be a high malt content.  If they could sort out the chlorine and naphthaline issues this could be a successful mid-level blend.  But at a luxury price, I don't see it flying off the shelf.  And after someone purchases one novelty flagon, is he or she ever really going to go back for a second?  Unless Usqueabach starts releasing flagons of different colors......

Availability - Some specialty retailers
Pricing - $100-$140
Rating - 76

NOT Single Malt Report: William Lawson's Finest Blend

Yesterday, I reviewed Grand Old Parr 12 year old, a pleasant tasty alternative to Chivas, though at a higher price.  Today, I venture down down down down to a lower shelf.

William Lawson's Finest Blend is one that is not sold in The States.  Florin (a prince) brought a bottle back from his recent voyage behind the Iron Curtain to Poland.  Adjusting for exchange rates, a 700mL bottle often sells for $10-$15 in much of Europe.  So keep in mind the price territory here.

The William Lawson's brand has an XTREME-styled website, seemingly designed for adults who still crush Mountain Dews.  Their commercials are of the loud sort as well.  Aside from the (NAS) Finest Blend, there's a 13 year old which used to be a 12 year old (upwards!) and a Super Spiced flavored product sold in (and designed for?) the US market.

Master of Malt says that William Lawson's is a high-malt whisky.  Meanwhile, William Lawson's official site makes it pretty clear that Macduff is a main ingredient.  That would make sense since Macduff (known as Glen Deveron in its single malt form) distillery and Lawson's are both owned by Bacardi.

What makes this blend of greater interest to me is the gap between the opinions of Ralfy Mitchell and Serge Valentin.  Ralfy likes Lawson's a lot, giving it an 85.  Serge thinks it is poor, giving it a 56.  That's not a casual difference of opinion, even considering that Ralfy grades blends versus blends within their own category while Serge grades everything together.  Let's see whose side I'm on.

Brand: William Lawson's

Ownership: Bacardi

Type: Scotch Blended Whisky

Age: not stated
Blend: malt and grain whiskies (Macduff is a main ingredient)

Alcohol by Volume: 40%

Chill-filtered? Yes

Caramel Coloring? Yes

HIGHBALL (1:2 whisky to club soda ratio)
Lots of cereal grains, yeast, and lightly ripened bananas.  No real finish but very refreshing.

NEAT
The color is light gold, much lighter than the Old Parr.  The nose is intense, rosy, full of flowers and stewed apples.  Lots of exotic overripe fruit odors, some sort of combination of citron, mango, and cantaloupe.  BUT these notes fade out after ten minutes or so, replaced by caramel and burnt raisins.  The palate has one of the thickest textures I've ever felt in a 40% ABV whisky.  The bananas from the highball have now been flambeed.  There's a hint of smoke, possibly from the barrel.  In fact it's like smoked caramel.  Some saltiness, along with cracked pepper and lime.  The weird grain notes often found in young blends are kept to a minimum here.  The finish is sorta short.  There's salt, spice, and savory stuff.  More caramel.  It can get a little cloying, but that much.

Firstly, Ralfy vs. Serge:  Ralfy, as he always does, reviews his own bottle.  In this case don't know if Serge is grading from a sample or a bottle, but I don't recognize any of his notes.  Perhaps he had a corrupted sample?  I do recognize many of Ralfy's notes, though he found even more positives than I did.

For a $10-$15 blend, this is at the head of the pack.  The nose is good if you don't allow it to oxidize.  The texture is impressive.  No turpentine, acetate, or weird crap in the nose or mouth.  If Bacardi sold this in The States, in that price range, I would keep a bottle on hand.  I'm not saying this is excellent whisky, but it's much better than its popular stablemate Dewar's White Label and at half the price.

Availability - Continental Europe and Latin America
Pricing - $10-$15
Rating - 78

NOT Single Malt Report: Grand Old Parr 12 year old blended whisky

Every whisky we drink -- unless it's a single never-been-recasked cask bottled at its actual cask strength -- is a blend of some sort.  Like blended malts and blended whiskies, single malts are the result of multiple casks being combined and mixed together.  But it seems as if "blended whiskies", which still make up almost 90% of whisky volume, are treated by whisky geeks as an embarrassing cousin to or not even a relative of the single malts we obsess over.

For this snob, when it comes down to it, I'm not a big fan of the single grain whiskies I've tried.  Haven't hated any of them, but haven't discovered one that I'd buy.  And though there are many great blenders out there, quite often the grain whiskies in a blend mute the vivacity and depth of the malt whiskies.  Of course, that's no accident.  The major blends are designed to drink easily and not offend a large audience.

But otherwise, there are a number of blended whiskies (Nikka's From the Barrel, Ballantine's 17yo, JW Black Label, earlier versions of JW Gold Label, and Compass Box's goodies) which I like better than many single malts.  Many blends are very good.  Most are drinkable.  And they usually make for decent highballs.  My issues with lower shelf blends are actually similar to my problems with lower shelf single malts.  Most (if not all of them) have been watered down, filtered, and dyed.  It's only in the blends I really dislike (Cutty and Dewars White) that I start finding young cruddy grain whisky overwhelming the package.

But I'll always give a blend a try, whether it's a $10 bottle or a $100, though I'll go with the $10 bottle first every time.  That's not just because I am (trying to be) fiscally responsible.  A $10 bottle may prove to be a fantastic find or stomach churningly craptacular.

This week I'll be reporting on three Scotch blended whiskies, though only one of them drifts into the $10 range.  Since the Long Beach summer lasts through November now, I've been in the search for a good highball whisky.  So I'll start each one off as a highball before proceeding neatly.

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Today, I'll start with Grand Old Parr 12 year old. There are three blends in the Old Parr regular range: a 12yo, 15yo, and 18yo. These blends are sold mostly outside of the US and UK, often in South America and Asia. While I've read positive reviews for the fifteen and eighteen, none of them match Jim Murray's declaration that the eighteen was the World Whisky of the Year in 2007. As usual, I haven't found a single person who agrees with his hyperbolic outburst. That doesn't stop me from wanting to hunt down a sample of it since old blends have, yes, old whisky in them.

The Old Parrs are named after Tom Parr who, legend has it, lived until the age of 152. He even got married at 122; and if they say he was still fulfilling his marital requirements at age 122, then I'd call bulls**t on that long before the claim of his final lifespan.

But if he was doing so, then it's about time we dig him up from under Westminster Abbey and beat the secret out of his corpse.

So......whisky.

Brand: Old Parr (though it sells 1 million cases annually, it hasn't earned itself a website)

Ownership: Diageo (boo)

Type: Scotch Blended Whisky

Age: at least 12 years
Blend: malt and grain whiskies (Cragganmore might be a main ingredient, per Wikipedia)

Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Chill-filtered? Yes

Caramel Coloring? Yes
(Thanks to Florin for the sample!)

HIGHBALL (1:2 whisky to club soda ratio)
A sweeter, more vanilla-ed alternative to Johnnie Walker Black.  A little bit of orange, a little bit of peat perhaps?  Has an extended finish of malt and citrus.

NEAT
It's color is Diageo Gold™.  The nose leads with caramel and toasted oak.  There are also prettier elements like citrus peels and flowers sitting alongside some tougher young grain notes.  But with time, it grows richer with a big vanilla note, plum, sandalwood, and lime juice.  The palate has a good thick mouthfeel.  It's oily and sweet at first.  Then the vanilla and mild grains follow, and it grows more peppery as it progresses.  Some mint and toffee sneak in.  Brief moments of bitterness compliment the sweetness.  It might be maltier than the most recent version of Black Label.  There are cracked peppercorns and orange peels in the finish, then caramel and toffee.

Grand Old Parr 12 year old is an easygoing, well balanced blend which makes it a good option for a hot late summer.  It makes for a sugary highball and, when neat, the nose is the best part if you give it some time.  If you're a Chivas drinker and are looking for something similar but different, this is a good option.  In fact, it's arguably a more enjoyable drink.  Geeks looking for complexity and depth should look elsewhere.  And while it's not hyperbole worthy, there's probably nothing technically wrong with the blend.

Availability - Most specialty retailers and the occasional corner liquor store
Pricing - $30-$35
Rating - 81

Further failures in bourbon blending......

(Yes, I'm aware that these aren't all bourbons, but I was looking for lazy alliteration.)

Two weeks ago, I shared with you the brief tale of my solid number two.  I made three whiskies out of Balcones True Blue Cask Strength corn whiskey and Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond straight rye.  Whiskey #1 and #3 had their strengths, but their weakness tilted them out of favor.  Whiskey #2, an ultra-high rye bourbon, was good enough to bottle 600mL worth.

On September 2nd, I took the last dribbles of the Balcones True Blue CS, the remainder of the Koval Dark Millet, and some of the Koval Dark Rye whiskey (each 100% one grain) and did two experimental blends.  The idea was to create a bourbon and a rye, but using the extra light millet grain whiskey rather than a malted barley whiskey as the third grain in each.

On the surface it sounds relatively harmless, but there were two issues floating above the experiments.  Firstly, these were all super young whiskies that displayed nearly no maturation characteristics.  Secondly, I didn't particularly care for the way any of them tasted on their own.  There were positives in their noses, but not in the palates.  With my previous whiskies, #1, #2, and #3, at least I had Rittenhouse BiB bringing a little bit of age and luscious flavor to the mix.

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#4 - Goal: Design a 51%-corn bourbon.  Result: Due to adjustments I had to make to take into consideration the whiskies' alcohol strengths as well as the microscopic milliliter adjustments, I had to settle for a 52%-corn bourbon.  Curses!

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 52/24/24 (corn/rye/millet)
Approximate ABV: 47.4%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 22 days

Nose -- Turpentine, caramel, vodka, corn, apple-flavored candy.  Lightly smoky.  But that's before I air it out.  After giving it 20+ minutes in a covered glass something awful began to happen.  While it still smelled of caramel and sugar, a massive note of rotten fish began to emerge.  And it wouldn't go away.  Either it absorbed something weird from the air or I crossed the streams.
Palate -- Corn, apple juice, vodka, and paper. With the extra time in the glass it improved slightly, with some more sweetness and bitterness.  But it never reaches a drinkable quality.
Finish -- More paper.  Very drying.  With air it becomes chemically bitter.

Verdict:  Wow.  Bad.  I could not finish it.  Worse than the sum of its parts.

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#5 - Goal: Design a rye with Rittenhouse's mashbill (37/51/12), substituting millet for barley.  Result: Due to the structural issues mentioned in #4's, I got pretty darn close

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 37.6/52.6/9.8 (corn/rye/millet)
Approximate ABV: 45.1%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 22 days

Nose -- Less ugly than #4.  A little bit of rye spice sneaks in.  Some flower blossoms.  Vanilla.  Vodka.  Lots of corn pushes past the other elements.  With 20+ minutes in the glass there isn't much change.  Might be a little more sugary.
Palate -- Lots of bitterness.  No sweetness whatsoever.  Corn, paper (again), bland vegetation.  Very light, almost like a Canadian blend.  With time no major flavors develop.  Sort of semi-bitter / semi-sweet.  Sort of drinkable.
Finish -- Paper, corn, imitation vanilla extract, some bitterness and caramel.  Nothing changes with time.

Verdict:  Better than #4, but I still wouldn't drink it if it were free.

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Both of these blends were crappy, though on different levels.  Aside from the bizarre rotten note, what was most disappointing was the feeling that in both instances I was drinking paper-flavored vodka (attention: makers of Cupcake Vodka...).  For a moment I considered blending #4 and #5 together, but then I decided that the whole thing needed to end promptly because...

The main lesson I learned from this blending experience is to not expect to suddenly create something good from elements one doesn't like in the first place.  Quality ingredients are the key to great dishes and cocktails.  Having at least one decent whisk(e)y may also be required in a blend.  So it's likely that one won't be able to salvage a bad whiskey by adding another one to it and then another one.

This week we'll see if professional blenders did a better job than I with the young whiskies they had at hand.