It’s definitely a hard pass from me. No thank you.
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Might have to pick this up. Do you think the local liquor store, the one with security cam photos of all the shoplifters at the register, carries it?
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Looks like something I would accidentally drop in the parking lot while I try to get my car door opened.
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Offer them $2.5 million first and remember the best part of good whiskey is sharing.
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In a Rob Roy is my go-to when I’m at work functions where cocktails are the common drink.
Conemarra is a pretty good peated Irish whisky and I typically don’t prefer Irish.
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Ya know, I’m a big fan of Tully as a decent fallback whiskey. For some reason it’s the only whiskey I prefer neat and warm.
Not all Scotch whisky is peated. Most of the Speyside brands (Macallan, Balvenie, Abelour) are very similar to bourbon in flavor.
@Shugart: Most flavored whiskeys are awful. I have had one tolerable cinnamon one from a craft distillery in Kentucky, but it was way too sweet.
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Unpopular opinion: Most whiskey is good whiskey, which makes most whiskey a rip-off.
Don’t get me wrong, a fine bourbon or scotch is definitely more enjoyable than a fine Jack Daniels, but Jack Daniels still makes a good whiskey. Most whiskey and bourbon I’ve tried between $30 and $60 are all quite good. Most single malt scotch I’ve tried is quite good.
I can definitely tell the difference between really cheap whiskey and good whiskey, but my palette lacks the sophistication to discern a major difference between something like a Macallan 12 year and a 18 year that costs five times as much.
If someone asked me to explain the difference I’d probably mumble something about the expensive stuff leading with a butterscotch nose accented with, uh, peach notes and, um, gentle spice flavors from the sherry cask.
Yeah, that’s the difference.
Unfortunately for whiskey reviewers, their jobs wil soon be replaced by an AI program that spits out a meaningless word salad only useful for rationalizing spending a lot of money on hooch.
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Have you tried a blind side by side tasting?
Have someone pour the glasses for you and then rank them in order of favorite to least. It takes away preconceived ideas about any brand. It’s a great way to explore the nose and taste. When you find out which one is which, there is often surprises.
I have done a bourbon tasting before and I can definitely rank my personal preference from whiskey to whiskey.
It’s just that all of the $100+ per bottle stuff I’ve had isn’t THAT much better than, say, a $35 dollar bottle of Woodford Reserve or a $70 bottle of Oban.
My post was mostly to make fun of the highly subjective flavor palette you hear described by whiskey “experts”. I remain suspicious of these guys, who I think are making a lot of it up to sound fancy.
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I think the difference between a $30 bottle and a $60 bottle can be huge. But the difference between a $100 bottle and a $200 bottle is minute. It’s a law of diminishing returns that is consistent with most things. Eventually you hit a point where the extra money isnt justifying the real or perceived increase in quality.
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Like all things, flavor preferences are subjective.
Age generally equates to a smoother bourbon (until they get really old and the tannins bite you), and aged bourbons can be more scarce than younger whiskeys due to length of time to market and evaporative loss but you can’t really objectively rate flavor.
For example I think Blanton’s tastes like a sub $30 whiskey, and would put the green label Weller above it back when it was readily available for $20 a bottle, but I can’t deny Blanton’s is smooth.
A $17 Evan Williams, specifically a $17 bottled in bond bottle, tastes better and is much smoother than many of the $60-$100 “craft” bourbons floating around out there.
Price in the bourbon market is a product of hype marketing and intentional scarcity currently popularized by Buffalo Trace and a few other large groups as a continuation of the Pappy Van Winkle marketing plan.
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I have not actually tried a $200 bottle yet, but I agree with what you’re saying.
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The first time I tried it I was a little disappointed. I bought a store pick of Blanton’s recently and it was a different story. (It is a single barrel)
It will be interesting to see if that holds true in the future with all the new distilleries, some putting out good products.
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Imo, as long as there are unicorns the phenomenon will hold. It will take a switch to gin or rum or whatever is on deck for the next trend to take the wind out of bourbons sails in general before scarcity loses value.
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What yall think of this guy? We dont sell it but have some upstairs.
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A blend of Irish and American whiskey is novel. They must not have distribution where I live. What are your impressions of it?