Nose: Hay, green grass clippings, green apple skins, lemon sponge cake, pencil shavings, ethanol. Palate: Slightly sweet and mildly spicy arrival but without a great deal of presence. It’s very light with some citrus, apple and barley-sugar in the mid-palate but it lacks depth and feels diluted, with a vodka-ish neutral grain spirit flavour clearly apparent. The texture is uninteresting. Finish: Short. Muted cereal and green fruits that fade quickly into an aftertaste of neutral spirit. Although Australia does not have “blended whisky” as a legal classification, this stuff is what anyone would understand to be the equivalent of a blended scotch. It is a mixture of about 40% single malt whisky from Manly Spirits and 60% grain spirit from the huge Manildra industrial distillation plant at Bomaderry on the southern NSW coast. However, don’t confuse the “grain spirit” component of this with Scottish grain whisky, because Manildra’s grain spirit is neutral alcohol primarily sold to local gin producers as a base spirit. It has virtually no aroma or flavor of its own and relies entirely on cask contribution for any character. And that’s the big issue here. Manly Spirits distillate is pleasant but it has a light, grassy quality and needs time in a forceful cask to really shine. However, when you blend that distillate with neutral alcohol and then age it for just the legal minimum of two years you get a whisky with very little presence. It’s OK in a highball with lots of ice and soda water, but anything with flavor like Coke or dry ginger completely swamps it and it is practically undetectable as whisky in a cocktail. It has no glaring faults or off-notes so it’s not a bad whisky as such, but it is extremely light and thin. It is outclassed by any cheaper priced blended scotch and I will be amazed if it is still available in a year's time because I just can’t see many people buying this more than once. It’s adequate, just, but completely ignorable so don’t bother. “Adequate” : 74/100 (2.25 stars)