Ron Burgundy "Great Odin's Raven" Special Reserve

A few months ago I was searching for a bottle of scotch to buy for my friend @LeeEvolved for his birthday. We are both huge fans of the movie Anchorman so when I happened across this bottle of Ron Burgundy’s Great Odin’s Raven (released to coincide with the release of Anchorman 2) I just had to buy it. He graciously sent me a sample and after having it sit for a while amongst my myriad of backlogged samples I decided tonight was the night to put it to the test. This is a blended scotch that is 60/40 malt/grain. The malts are from the Highlands, Speyside and Islay. Bottled at 40% ABV and is chill filtered with colorant added making it a honey gold. The nose is very grain forward, despite it being the lower percentage spirit in the mix. Cereal grains, vanilla, honey and hay. Slightly astringent like acetone. Worn oak, but not quality oak. Underripe peaches and overripe bananas, but light on both accounts. After a little time there emerges a coffee/mocha/cocoa powder note that was most unexpected, but faded quickly and never returned. There is an earthy/vegetal/peaty note that is slightly smoky, very slightly. Damp and musty with some coconut scented dish soap. I added a couple drops of water just to see what happened. It toned down the harshness but did little to improve the nose other than that. The palate is also very grainy with honey and cereal malt. A strange sour note, like citric acid got mixed in with the yeast in a batch of sourdough bread. The grain is harsh at times. Vanilla, sharp oak and bitter white grape juice. Water has the same effect on the palate as it did on the nose, a reduction in harshness but nothing additional. Light to medium bodied mouthfeel that is creamy and mouth coating. The finish is medium long with harsh grains, vanilla and underripe pears. Fairly dry. This is a great example of marketing in action. You have a sequel to a great movie and you want to get people really excited about it. So why not release a whisky with the main characters name on it? Who cares what’s in the bottle so long as it brings attention to the movie. Well I bought into it. Am I regretting that decision? Not at all! It’s a great conversation piece for a fair price (I believe I paid $23 for it). I’ll give it the edge when going up against JW Red Label simply because it’s cheaper and has a slightly more complex nose, but this is a mixer and not meant to be drank neat. 2.75 Cheers

With great trepidation I write this review, at the sheer fear of the reprisals and wrath I know I’ll incite from those fake news characters and their pet lizard. Or ferret. Maybe was it a parakeet ? Thanks, and I use that word with a moderate amount of liberal bandwidth, to @LeeEvolved for this sample. Better than expected, but let’s face it...it’s no Four Roses, even if it was diluted with a silly amount of water. Corn kernels, with a hefty dose of that cheap movie theater butter. With a tinge of Milk of Magnesia, minus the large intestine cleaning attributes. Just barely tolerable and borderline drain cleaner material. I think this is $25. Take your $25, walk over to the wine aisle, and get a superb Chilean red for the same price and triple the pleasure. Maybe “pleasure” is too strong a word, since that’ll derail those news guys and one of their sex addict mothers.

Hah! @LeeEvolved paid it forward with this dram, and it was better than expected! On the nose you get some faint red apples, cinnamon, and a touch of smoke. It’s a similar palate, goes down smooth as silk. I am sure it’s from help of the 40% ABV. Anyway, faint short finish, but still tasty. With the price point, you can’t go wrong either. 3.0. The theme of this dram has to be a 70s disco number. I am thinking “Heart of Glass” by Blondie.

When the FedEx guy knocked on my door a couple of weeks ago and told me I had a delivery I had to sign for I gave him that look a dog makes when he hears a strange noise he’s never heard before: the side-glance, tilted head questioning stare. “I didn’t order any scotch this week”, I said. Just sign, a-hole. Imagine my surprise that my good buddy Paulie from Detroit Rock City secretly bought me a birthday present and had it shipped directly from some secret, Scottish blending lab. Then I saw what it was, Great Odin’s Raven. The Ron Burgundy blended scotch that’s all the rave on Distiller now. Oh boy. This was blended by Old St Andrews Ltd. The same people that make the blended scotch for the historical golf course. It’s a blend of Highland, Speyside and Islay whiskies and was bottled at 40%. It doesn’t sting the nostrils, instead it’s mostly apples with a slight twinge of artificial smelling liquid smoke. There no barrel notes to be found. On the tongue, it’s very watery with more apples and a little bit of vanilla and smoke. The finish is short, weak with a decent amount of smokiness underlying everything. The more I drank, the more I enjoyed it. I watched the Anchorman movie and ended up drinking about 1/3 of the bottle, so it is serviceable. I think Paul meant this bottle as a joke, but the jokes on him- I will drink the hell out of this bottle. No regrets. It’s a middle of the road dram and for $20-25 it’ll get you where you need to be. Thanks @Generously_Paul. Cheers to me. 3 stars.

Hey Distiller Gang, WKVN Channel 4’s Sports reporter Champ Kind here! My Channel 4 News lead anchorman, and real life best friend Ron Burgundy, left an opened bottle of his scotch- Great Odin’s Raven on the news desk and I knew he wouldn’t mind if I had a splash, whammy. It says it’s a blended scotch, kinda like how him and me are a blend of two halves of the same whole. He’s the Yin to my Yang, in a completely plutonic way of course, and I have to say it’s a delicious scotch indeed. Now, I usually go for a shot of Wild Turkey, some chicken wings and a pint of MGD while watching football with the guys, but I could see adding this to the rotation on a regular basis. The smell reminds me of the time me and Ron went over to the Channel 9 Evening News team’s turf looking for a fight. Instead, we found Wes Mantooth’s mother, Dorothy Mantooth, wondering around the park. Me, being the constipated gentleman I am, asked her to accompany me down to the local lobster house where we had a delicious seafood dinner. I took her home, read her a bedtime story about how Joe Namath was the greatest NFL QB to ever lace up a pair of cleats, and bid her Au River- that’s France for goodnight. She slipped her phone number into my blazer pocket, but I hope she realizes that I will never call her. Wee-eww-wee-eew!! Get this crazy lingo out of my brain! I had to get all that fufu French talk out of my head so I chugged the last of Ron’s scotch. I wish I could remember the taste, but I drank so much of it that I blacked out. When I woke up I was clinging naked to the hood of some Russian lady’s station wagon as she drove down Market St towards Embarcadero Park. I don’t know what she was screaming at me through the windshield- all I heard was something about diversity, and said “Listen lady, what the hell does this have to do with that old, old wooden ship that Ron was talking about that day at the station?! Drop me off there so I can read some sports scores!”. She just kept on driving until I flung myself off 2 blocks from WKVN. The sad part is that the last of Ron’s scotch hit the curb and bounced back into my hands, only to shatter when I put it to my lips again, whammy. Bottom line, Great Odin’s Raven is the best scotch money can buy, and if I had it my way Ron and I would get an apartment together where we could drink it all day and night. Go buy it or I will smash your face through a car windshield!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an urgent and important announcement to make- I’m Ron Burgundy and I’ve just had a beautiful and delicious scotch blended in my honor and I’d like to tell you all about it, so I need all of you to shut up and listen... As you all are certainly aware, I’m the lead anchor of the greatest news team in the world- KVWN’s Channel 4 News, out of San Diego California. The honorable people from Old Saint Andrews Distillery found out that I love scotch and they decided that the world’s “biggest deal” in reporting the news deserved a fine, blended scotch to call his own. We present to you, with much fanfare and grandiose trumpeteering, GREAT ODIN’S RAVEN! First, I believe this scotch was made in a distillery beside the caddy shack at the Old St. Andrews golf course, in downtown Scotland. TRUE STORY: I had lunch recently, in Temecula at a Taiwanese restaurant called The Dragon Eats The Mouse, with ex-NFL legend and Oscar-worthy actor Alex Karras, and he told me that while he was on the set of his hit television show Webster, he overheard Emmanuel Lewis say that I was mentioned as a possible lead in the Caddyshack movie for the character played by Oscar winner, Ted Knight. Now, I realize he put in a solid performance but could you even begin to imagine how good that movie would’ve been had I been cast in that predominant role? People would probably still be watching and quoting lines from the movie. CORRECTION: I was just informed that Ted Knight has never won an Oscar. What a travesty! Anywho, where was I? My Great Odin’s Raven scotch...I was told by my friend and style reporter, Brian Fantana, that I should tell you all about this wonderous libation: well, upon pouring it into my Channel 4 News mug, which I assure you is a completely acceptable way to drink your scotch whisky. The shape of the mug allows all the fresh aromas to ascend directly to the nostrils. Right away I should tell you that it’s quite pungent and stings those nostrils a bit. It’s a deep, rich mahogany in color and reminds me of all the old, leather bound books in my study. Old St Andrews actually used bits of my moustache hair as a filtration for this blend and I can see that a few made their way into my bottle. They’ve assured me that the human hair poses no direct threat to public health, so I’d say if you find some in your bottle- just go ahead and enjoy them. It’s just a little bit of me that will be in you. I wanna be in you. Continuing with the nosing...Like I said, it is pungent, but son-of-a-bee sting do I love it’s musk! Watch out for the musk- it’ll get ya! The oak charring assaults your sinuses like a wild animal in heat. This is how Veronica Corningstone and I smell when we make sex. It is amazing. I should add that I decided to partake in this sample while lounging at home one afternoon with a very close friend- let’s just call him Baxter- while Miss Corningstone was on assignment covering the area Cat Show at the local mall. That beautiful woman is going to be something someday- like maybe a sexy airline stewardess or a fashion magazine butt model. She has a spectacular heiny. Well, Baxter and I slipped into our PJ’s and we devoured this bottle of scotch alongside an entire wheel of cheese. Can you believe we ate the entire wheel? It was truly an afternoon delight. The flavors of this scotch are incredible. When it first hits your tongue there’s an intense sense that you’re eating Indian food that was prepared in a stall near the fighting pits of a Colosseum. The mixture of curried meat and man sweat is tantalizing. There’s a local San Diego club owner, Tino, and he makes an incredible dish of seared coyote heart- it reminds me of that. Very meaty and spicy. I would play jazz flute for free every time he makes me that dish. When in Rome. Channel 4’s sports reporter Champ Kind is a big fan of exciting finishes and I’m sure he’d relish the way Raven does- like a bottle of barbecue sauce smothered on a lady’s big, ole behind. Whammy!, indeed. Great Odin’s Raven really is a testament to blended scotch whisky. I’m proud to bring my star power over here to Distiller, which i believe is pronounced deez-tea-yhar and is the old Teotihuacan word for a porpoise’s anus. I also demanded that Old St. Andrews keep the price reasonable so that all of the people in Southern California could buy and enjoy it. Should I get that network anchor job, they will have to make even more for everyone around this great nation. While my lifetime supply is free, you can purchase it anywhere that fine spirits are sold for around $24. I recommend buying several bottles because the collectibility of this will be massive- just like the erection I get every time I drink it. Don’t act like you’re not impressed. You stay classy, Deez-tee-yhar.

Darker than expected (probably coloring) and not horrible smelling. First sip was surprisingly good, pretty smokey and kinda peppery. The finish, and subsequent sips, were gross. I'm hoping it mixes well.