cascode
Whyte & Mackay Special Blended Scotch
Blended — Scotland
Reviewed
December 4, 2019 (edited April 10, 2022)
Nose: Toffee, caramel, brown sugar, butter - it's a heavy and sweet nose and there is an odd note that takes a while to track down - it's chicory, which is a seldom found aroma in scotch whisky.
Palate: A firm, strident arrival that has dark fruits and molasses in abundance. As it develops, vegetal spiciness appears together with a tense flavour of hard toffee - it's like peanut brittle that was cooked too long and almost burnt. This lingers throughout the taste. The texture is OK, but nothing to extol, and a little ethanol tinge is discernable.
Finish: Medium/short. There is not much length but there's a lingering bittersweet note of horehound, which is a very rare thing to notice in whisky.
This is big old-fashioned bruiser of a type you don't see much anymore. It's not subtle or nuanced at all - you know the expression "a bull in a china shop"? Well, yeah, that's this whisky.
It has a robust brown sugar core and a slightly unusual herbal quality (I can't think of any other whisky where I've noticed both chicory and horehound) however the foundation malt is unfortunately rather flat, dull and has an unmistakable stain of sulphur.
The palate is harder to like than the nose as it has a really uncompromising burnt sugar quality, but again it's not actually bad - just kind of rough (Jim Murray famously compared this whisky to the enjoyment of rough sex).
I can't hate this as much as many folks here, and I think it's worth more than the official rating of 65 (but maybe not much more, and it's certainly a sub-70/100 whisky). I'd drink it at a bar in a pinch, particularly if Grants was the only alternative.
Don't take it neat - it's not up to it and you'll only hurt yourself - restrain it with cola or dry ginger and lots of ice and it goes down just fine.
"Inferior" : 69/100 (1.75 stars)
40.0
AUD
per
Bottle
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@1901 This is pure speculation so I'm more than happy to stand corrected. I can only go by what I know from his earlier editions and some snippits I've read in later ones while browsing in bookstores, however my strong suspicion is that the half-dozen now widely re-quoted snippits originally given by Paskin are the extent of the genuinely "questionable" quotes, and the other couple of dozen quotes do little more than describe a dram as "sexy".
@PBMichiganWolverine @cascode I’m not sure the examples she picks are all that vulgar, crude or explicit - they include “sexy”, “seduction”, “make love”, “threesome”. Ok it may be risqué and cringeworthy, and as you say why did he need to go there, but vulgar or explicit? Everyone has a different tolerance for that, but it’s not a crime and many authors better than he from James Joyce to Roddy Doyle have been accused of similar. If he described a whiskey as smelling like donkey semen strained through a tramps sock, i’d agree he is vulgar but still feel he has the right to write it. Sexism is a different story as that is objectively wrong, and I do think he can be pulled up on that in the Glenmorangie Artisan Cask review she presents. I don’t have any of his books so I don’t know if this is one example of many. I think the pitchforks are out and a boycott is launched.
@PBMichiganWolverine @1901 I'm disturbed by the treatment he is receiving, to be honest. I bought his Guide to Scotch Whisky back in the 1990s and the Whisky Bible twice, the first edition and again in 2014, but I've not bothered since. I don't find it particularly useful but neither do I think he is the devil incarnate like some people make out. He clearly has his own agenda and some industry connections, but I doubt he is outright corrupt like some claim. He has always slipped in the occasional risque note, but where this seemed innocent like a naughty old-fashioned British seaside postcard or a re-run of Benny Hill 20 years ago, it's a little on the nose nowdays. However it's one thing to make people aware of this and let them make up their own minds to not buy his book, it's another entirely to start a witch-hunt, and that's what this is turning into. His books have been pulled from the Whisky Exchange store and I know of people petitioning MoM and Amazon to likewise have him banned, all for a half-dozen mildly questionable comments. That's mob censorship and cancel culture. To hell with that.
@1901 i totally agree with her...no reason for him to go there in this day and age. A lot of distilleries refused endorsement as well. Wondering why he did that...plummeting sales, so trying a different angle?
Your reference to Jim Murray’s comparison is interesting now given the storm brewing with Becky Paskin calling out on Instagram the sexual references in his Whiskey Bible. https://www.instagram.com/p/CFWy3DEM9mf/?igshid=54h3raax04c5 Sexist, vulgar, crude and explicit - she argues. You can debate the sexual politics, but it is hard to dispute that the reviews she uses as examples are a little bit cringeworthy.
Boy I think ide give rough sex more than 1.75 stars....lol
All the burnt sugar notes you mentioned reminds me of the Kirkland 12 blend