Bear Valley Brandy

What an absolutely disgusting product. The nose is faintly of lightly putrid grapes, a spicy oak (it's supposed to be aged in fired oak) that's very off from what it's supposed to smell like and paint thinner with medicinal notes. Even the two smells that should be there, grapes and oak, don't come together in unison and instead seem to act in direct opposition to each other. But it doesn't really matter since the prevailing smell is of paint thinner and nail polish. There's also a disgusting "wet sock" aroma that is just as foul as it sounds. I'm sorry I don't have a better descriptor for the smell. Just the foul odor wine left opened on a hot day in a small space produces. Horrid. Things go downhill once you put this in your mouth. It genuinely tastes unfinished. Like someone decided they wanted to make a very bitter liqueur with brandy as its base and after adding one or two random ingredients forgot about it, chucked it into some random barrels for a month or two then called it a day. This straight up doesn't taste like brandy. You have to fight against all the unpleasant flavors threatening to make you spit it out to find even any note of grape and oak barrel. They mostly come at the finish but are so fleeting they may as well be irrelevant. So what tastes do you actually get? Well, it's hard to describe because the English language isn't really well suited to describe highly distinct but unpleasant tastes. They're superbly bitter, spicy, potent and pervasive. Take your pick between putrid oak, tingly rot, lab grade ethanol and pungent astringency Worst of all they're all disentangled. There's no flow or cohesion here. It's just random bursts of unpleasantness with some grape and oak now and then. Occasionally medicinal notes pop up before giving way to more astringency and bitterness. The product legitimately feels unfinished and as if it was made from the grapes about to go rotten and casks all other distillers and people who care about quality control rejected. The finish is the absolute worst though as all of the bitterness and off-notes come to roost in one final assault. If the rest of the experience lacked unity, the finish is the exact opposite. It's a concerted assault on the senses that just beats you down with overt medicinal notes rounding out the climaxing bitterness of the front and mid palate. I'm impressed that this got progressively worse. Were they intentionally trying to make the worst tasting "brandy" possible? The only reason this is getting .25 stars from me and not a flat out 0 is because the bottle and label actually look cool. I'd buy an empty bottle and fill it with E&J Brandy or Christian Brothers. Sure, those aren't exactly great brandies either but at least they are drinkable but come in horridly boring bottles. But aside from this niche use this is something to be avoided at all costs. Incidentally, there's no digital trail for this product. It's a BevMo! Exclusive but I couldn't find who the criminal responsible for this is. BevMo! and other major retailers love to pump out ghost brands sourced from major producers and market them under a random name, usually overpriced. Occasionally they'll come out with something reasonable and affordable like BevMo!'s Kisoyama Yuhi, a "Japanese" Whiskey that really comes from Europe but is bottled in Japan. But at $24 it's actually not bad albeit highly deceptive. Bear Valley is another such deceptive brand built solely to move more product with no regard to much else. But still, I've never had anything this despicable and unconscionable.