Grangestone 12 Year

I'm having a little bit of fun with 50ml samplers that I purchased from Total Wine. I am completely unfamiliar with Grangestone and I have never had any of this brand of whisky before. I sampled this neat from a Glencairn and gave the whiskey ample opportunity to rest before tasting. The nose is pretty nondescript. I get a little honey, some ethanol, a bit of a light grain note, perhaps a bit flowery. Certainly nothing special about it. There is also nothing off-putting. It has a surprisingly good mouth feel, with a soft entry and a wave of sweetness. The finish goes a bit bitter after the swallow. A bit of wood is what's left as an aftertaste. There's really not much to it and there's nothing to get excited about. 2.5 stars for being wholly average and, I'm assuming, pretty inexpensive.

This was better than I thought would be. A decent whisky for the price. I don’t usually trust the independent bottlers but my research tells me the owners of Glenfiddich & Balvenie do the bottling for this for Total Wine. So that’s something lol It’s very easy to drink. You get the sweet maltiness you get on most highlands. A bit of vanilla and even some unexpected ashy note on the finish. It’s rich and even with a low proof it got a character to it. It’s not mind blowing great, but my whisky sipping experience was pleasant.

I found a few of these shooters on the shelf at the local and grabbed them to see what we can see, sorry didnt get a chance to spot the price on full sized bottles. A very Highlands nose of spicy citruses, Glen-maOrangie if you will, really nice if that is your thing. That nose theme follows with some sweet cereals, lemon and orange fruit loops through the middle and ends with only slight smokes. This fruity Highlands dram seems really "approachable" to use that over worked word. What I like, as a novice Scotcher, is the laid back peats and smokes, nothing about the malt side bowls over the nice, sweeter notes, some real balance here. This is a good one for a lot of palates, here is a Scotch that doesn't taste like it's ready to take the paint off the walls. This one isn't going to win any awards for complexity nor are the hard core Islay fans going to be impressed, but a nice bottle for those who appreciate the fruity easy going scotch profile. Cheers!

Malty, milk chocolate, caramel