Jose-Massu-Espinel
Clynelish Reserve (Game of Thrones-House Tyrell)
Single Malt — Highlands, Scotland
Reviewed
April 17, 2022 (edited September 4, 2022)
Man, i hate this Game of Thrones special releases. Only a couple of them were actually good, and they were from Lagavulin and Talisker, proving it is impossible for those two to screw whisky up. I have tasted i believe the last one i was missing, the Clynelish Reserve, from GOT's "House Tyrell". This "special" collection is so bad, you can still buy expressions in The Whisky Exchange for 42 pounds.
Having said all that, this one tried its best. Bottled at 51.2%abv. Golden color.
On the nose, it is very fruity and honeyed. Pears, bananas, strong mint hard candy. Wet grass. A nice chocolate fudge has risen. A little soapy. Cloth softener. Apple sider. Actually a fresh, appealing aroma. Bee honey. After a first sip, it is all about pears and apples.
On the palate it starts with thick honey. It is a spoon of bee honey, with some coconut; there is this peach note lurking in the back of my mouth. Very fruity, easy to hold even for a 51.2% abv. The second sip was very light and watery. It fell dramatically. The peaches are still here and some very mild tickling spice. Apples on the third sip.
Aftertaste is not bad, not overly fun either. Sawdust, ginger and mouthdrying. This is a pleasant dram and that is it. The second sip was even more woody, which is a term i dislike to use, but it gave me exactly this feeling of new wood. Apples.
Overall, as most whiskies from this collection, this is not horrible, but also not good. Very standard, maybe pleasant, and definitively boring. This is not the worst of the collection. A nice note, a very light palate, a boring aftertaste, for a whisky that barely passes the test. My score for it is 81 over 100.
Create Account
or
Sign in
to comment on this review
@Jose-Massu-Espinel you’re probably right on that breakdown… so primarily we’re paying HBO and drinking bottom shelf crap
@Jose-Massu-Espinel It was a shocker, wasn't it? You're probably right with that cost breakdown, and most likely it was not released to make money at all but purely for marketing. I had the bad fortune to taste it at room temperature at a pop-up stand at a local liquor shop, so I had it in its full-on hyper-sweet horror. It was like tasting undiluted strawberry cordial base. Shudder. The guy at the stall made the taste in my mouth even worse by saying, when he saw my expression, "of course, this one is meant for the ladies". I was tempted to break a bottle of it over his head.
@cascode i am deeply sorry you had to taste the white walker. it was so bad that i had to make this analysis: if it costs around $20, the intelectual property of HBO and GOT, is like $10 of that. then, the special decanter that changes when frozen, is like $9 of that cost. That leaves you with a $1 whisky... that is why they want you to taste it frozen.
Despite my initial resolve not to have anything to do with the GoT releases, for one reason or another I ended up tasting them all. I agree that of the initial 7 releases the Lagavulin and Talisker were the only interesting ones and I thought this Clynelish was pretty ordinary. The later Oban Night’s Watch was, however, surprisingly good (the best of the lot, I think, and the only one I bought) and the final Mortlach Six Kingdoms was OK – up there with the Lagavulin. As for the Johnnie Walker Ice and Fire releases and the appalling White Walker, it’s best to pretend they never happened.