Paul John, as a brand, first came on my radar, when the Nirvana hit the Best Values section of Whisky Advocate's reviews. Now I've said this before in comments, but I'm not sure I included it in a review: I don't necessarily takes what the Advocate says as verbatim truth. They are a lifestyle magazine, but a subscription costs $22/year and you get decent articles, glossy pictures of whisky bottles, and although the reviews never seem to dip below 87 for anything, their Editor's Choice, Best Value and Collectibles Choices are pretty spot-on. Or, I should say the Editor's Choice and Best Value are. I don't really have the deep pockets for their collectible recommendations. If the Best Value picks are in my region, I almost always pick up a bottle, and that was especially the case when I had two kids in daycare and was barely making ends meet (thank god for public schools, am I right? If nothing else, they let daddy afford more expensive whiskies). The Nirvana is Paul John's 80 proof single malt expression, and while it's never going to change anyone's life, at $26 a bottle and with some nice fruitiness, it punches at a weight really only challenged by Dewar's 12. I've only ever had the one bottle about two years ago, but I remember it being entirely serviceable and I wasn't embarrassed to serve it to company. The only other expressions available in my region were the Christmas 2019 and the Christmas 2020 as well as this Select Cask. Given the community score here, I wasn't really seeking the Select Cask, but the Christmas editions seemed appropriate for the festive season, and I was waiting for the festive season to purchase them. Apparently, waiting paid off, as both Christmas expressions went on clearance at 50% off, so I scored them both for $45. And the Select Cask went on Clearance for the same, so instead of $100, it was $50. And so, like any self-respecting curious whisky fan, I snatched up all three, even if the community score for the Select Cask was only 3.4, the lowest of all the whiskies in my collection on this site. This absolutely boggles the mind because this whisky is definitely better than a 3.4, better than deserving the lowest score of anything I own (to put this in context, Tullamore DEW's standard expression is a 3.5). It might be the price. If I hadn't picked this up for $50, I might have felt that it didn't live up to what I paid. But then again, I generally only pay $100 for Islay Scotches. So I'd have never bothered with it if it hadn't gone on clearance. I opened this, this past Sunday, the same day I opened a Johnnie Walker Green, and the Green was far superior but there were similarities in terms of bright fruitiness, even if the fruits differed. Nosing this, there's an odd funk that comes from an admixture of papaya, kiwi, coconut, and mango. I'm curious as to how this comes about. How you can take grains and get such variety of scents. And honestly, I've never had these aromas in anything else. But I'm still trying to figure out what the funk is, because if it were just those scents clean, this would be an amazing dram. There's also something of a solvent in there, something chemical that keeps this from being top tier. But that solvent isn't enough to ruin the nose. The palate, overall, is a combination of the tropical fruits in the nose that end up coming of as a tropical fruit punch with that alcohol edge you get at 102 proof. I gave a sip to my wife, who prefers bourbon and Irish whiskies, and she started coughing because it went down the wrong pipe, but whereas some 117 proof whiskies don't drink like their proof, this feels like it drinks a bit higher than 102. Not that I mind, it's not harsh, but it's...sharp? The finish remains fruity with a slight slight bite to it. And really, what keeps this from being a higher rating is a lack of balance. All the elements are here to make a good whisky, but they just don't come off perfectly. It's like when you watch someone do a great routine on the balance beam, perfectly execute a double backflip off of it, and then just stagger a step as they hold their arms up in the air. Oh, I'll be finishing this bottle with relish, but you can see how this doesn't quite reach it's full potential. When they figure it out, this could be absolutely amazing.