Rating: 8/23 I'm skeptical of this, but I've heard that Ainsley Brae may be a hidden gem. Sort of.a hidden quartz: a little better than it's priced at. My local Total Wine only had the Burgundy finish, which I'm concerned won't be terribly representative, but, hey, I've had awful sherry finishes before and rarely found that the various finishes on bad scotch do much to improve it. Also, I liked the Tullibardine Burgundy well enough, so maybe this will be good. N: I get malt blended with sulfur and strawberry gummies. It's quite sweet and reasonably rich. There are both hay and fresh-cut grass as well. It smells kind of muddled and the sweet strawberry is concerning, but it doesn't smell awful. I get a little bit of spice, but also a waft of alcohol. It definitely smells young. P: What a hope-destroying first taste! It's thin (as is often a problem with unfortified wine finishes) with jarring flavors that don't stand out from each other and a prominent flavor of Welch's strawberry gummies. You know, those ones that look like strawberries, but actually have no strawberry flavor, natural or artificial, inside of them (seriously, check the back - it's largely pineapple flavoring in these things)? There is some nice woody spice in here that is mixed with hay, grass, some spearmint, and sulfur. It's a bit harsh with some noticeable alochol, but it isn't too bad. The strawberry sweetness is both excessive, covering up the other flavors, and kind of the only thin covering up how watery this is. IT certainly tastes very young. Yeah, this is the standard experience for a bad, young scotch being badly finished a la Grangestone. There is nothing special about this palate. The palate is actually richer and more viscous than that of Grant's Triple Wood, but it's also less balanced with a bit more harshness. Gran't tastes more elegant, but also more sulfuric. When I taste Grant's I think of scotch. This is weird. F: This is actually, the real problem. I get a surge in the strawberry gummies flavor on the finish. There's this rise in fake caramel flavor with an increased strawberry fruitiness and a little bit more rich bitterness. It's unpleasant While I think that a single release can't be used to judge an entire line, the fact that such an obviously bad whisky was released under the Ainsley Brae name strongly suggests that the other finished releases are bad as well. Particularly given the price, I expect I'll be avoiding Ainsley Brae going forward. I mean, I got this on sale for $25. ON SALE. It's normally $30. THIRTY DOLLARS! I could buy a Glenmorangie The Original, Sazerac, or Eagle Rare for that price! Heck, I could buy a Wild Turkey 101 for less and be far happier or a Doorly's 12 for less and be thrilled! This is bad and in terms of VFM, it's atrocious! At least with some of the worse scotches like Glen Logie, they're dirt cheap and you could still dump them in some rowdy mixed drink without attracting too much attention. The Burgundy finish here demands attention in a bad way. I kind of wonder if it is one of those California Bugundies that is just a bad red blend with a fancy name since it has a bit of that cheap flavor to it. In the end, this is perhaps a tad better than Grant's, but they're pretty close. I'm thinking a 6-10 on this one and leaning toward an 8.