I'm on a quest to find the best blended scotch for my "handle" shelf of liquor. The everyday pours. The cocktail bases. The bulk buys. The stuff that's affordable enough that you don't think about it when playing around with a new idea. It was inevitable that Costco would become involved. In one fell swoop I brought home this, it's bigger 17 Year old Speyside Single Malt brother, its Kirkland London Dry gin cousin and distant cousin (and repeat visitor) Kirkland French Vodka. For this review, I tasted from a bottle that's been open a couple weeks. This scotch was sampled neat from a NEAT tasting glass. On the nose this gives up apple juice, slight ethanol, very faint notes of plum and whiffs of barrel wood. This is not a very forward nose, but the aromas are pleasant and quite appropriate for a quality blended scotch. On the palate the entry is sweet, soft and silky. This is a very easy neat sipper with little trace of ethanol, a fruity sweetness that fades to something like wet cornflakes in milk, and a trace of lemony, pithy wood bitterness. The finish is lightning fast and fades cleanly. I'm sitting here trying to find something to complain about. The sins of this blended scotch are sins of omission. It doesn't "do" all the things amazing scotch can do flavor wise, but it really doesn't do anything wrong. What it does it gets right in a soft, submissive way. In a Rob Roy I found this scotch really loves the sweet vermouth, but it becomes a costar and really not a headliner. The vermouth is allowed to dictate the personality of the cocktail. I tried Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Martini & Rossi sweet, and Cnia Mata Tinto Reservo Spanish vermouth. In each instance I could easily taste the vermouth and discern how the cocktail as a whole changed its face. There's nothing here to hate, or even dislike. This is a solid, inexpensive, pretty unexciting but completely solid blended scotch whisky. For the price this is one of the great VFM deals, getting an extra quarter star for affordability. I have no qualms about this in my glass. I rate on a scale of 1 to 5 where the vast majority of product is going to find itself on a bell curve. Any quality, competent product should score between 2 and 3, with the peak at 2.5. This is definitely at that peak. If you're in the market for a budget handle ($36 in my market) and you have a Costco membership, this is an easy decision.