Honey orange color with sticky legs. The very first sniff is honeysuckle, green apple, pear, lemongrass and vanilla. It's a soft aroma, redolent of linen or maybe lavender fabric softener. Barley sugars, candied orange and dried berries. The flavor is honey and vanilla bean coffee creamer. Fresh tobacco leaf. It has a grassy, rustic component; hay and barley. There is an oak char bitterness that acts as a counterpoint to the other, sweeter qualities. Finishes with tobacco smoke and wood char. More barley sugars and toffee/molasses sweetness. A mint/menthol coolness that lingers after everything else fades. I have no beef with Monkey Shoulder, but I'm curious as to why this is the blend that captured America's heart. Is it because it's a blend that drinks like a single malt? I'd put it in the above average camp: very (repeatably) drinkable and priced nicely.