Very smokey, you get that right from the start with the peppery nose. Tastes just like it smells. Plain except for the horrendous, fume like taste. A cheap, entry level blend. Supposedly it's marketed as a mixer in Europe. After tasting it, you can surmise as to why that is. The aesthetics of the bottle and the label (it's been in countless movies and books) are probably worth more to me than the actual scotch inside the bottle.