Grant's Family Reserve

A buddy of mine was given a bottle of this stuff for his birthday. Knowing nothing about this blended whisky, I could already tell this was going to be some rough stuff. When you see labels like "Finest" and "Extremely Rare" you know you're likely to be in for a bad time. I'm very confused on the connection with Glenfiddich and Balvenie, though - do they really also distill those brands? I'm on their site as I write this review and I can't quite believe they're also responsible for those two brands. The nose smells like a cheap blend. Ethanol and bready yeast fill your nostrils. A little deeper still brings apple and.... burnt candy corn? Palate begins light and indeed the whole taste is quite light and one dimensional. I'm getting some spicy cinnamon, dry brush, honey and as the taste comes to the finish some faint musty prunes. The finish is.... well where exactly is it? Perhaps that close to the taste with the mildly musty prunes was it. I hesitate to take a bigger sip to see if I get more of a finish but as I do, I discover a deeply bitter, almost medicinal quality creeps in with the musty prune flavor. Reminds me of very bad cough syrup. Yuck. I guess if I was given a bottle of this stuff I'd be thankful it wasn't Scoresby or Glen Ness but lord is that bar low. I hear they bottle this stuff as "Grant's Triple Wood" now. Whatever the case, please don't ever spend money on this stuff. I had a look online and discovered a 1.75 of this is $26. Look ~ if you've only got $26 to spend on whisky, maybe just buy some less expensive hooch and forgo this stuff.

i like this one. the bitter after taste kind of makes it not as good as it could be, but i do like the bitter coffee-ish aftertaste. it kinda tastes like coffee that has gone cold and bitter, but the heat of the spicy alcohol (both on the smell and on the second taste) makes it exciting. what could come accross as herbal comes as somewhat coffee-ish to me, specially if the coffee is not too strong, watered down or just cold. the sweet part isn't exactly fruity, i get more of a licorice anise taste. not really a round mouth feel, it's spiky cause of the spicy and wood notes. not an entry level whisky, but a good one to explore more flavours. the finish isn't really flat, it's got some spikes of sweet licorice anise and spicy wood, kinda oscillating from one to the other.