Battle of the Blends - Round 2, Part 1

Match 9

Vote 4-3: Winner J&B

"Hold yer nose and drive'r into ya!"

This battle pitted two offensively strong smelling drams, who both handily defeated their first round challengers, against each other. In a squeaker of a match, J&B won by a nose - albeit a sweet, rank, vegetative rot of a nose, but a nose nonetheless. Unfortunately, we couldn't award any additional points to Grand Macnish for its wonderfully retro/kitsch bottle design but we did feel that, aesthetically speaking, it had the edge over J&B in this limited area.

The assembled company didn't pull any punches in their appraisal of these two whiskies and most of the commentary dealt with the odours present in each dram. Grand Macnish was characterized by an overly hot, alcoholic nose sweetened by medicinal notes i.e. chlorine, synthetic cherry and pineapple? J&B didn't come off much worse in this regard and the nose was described as "Nose hair curling, splash of urine, peaty with vegetative rot akin to an old swim suit and similar in it's bouquet to a dry, skunky, white wine." One would assume based the litany of awful smells listed that J&B would've easily been trounced by Grand Macnish however, the proof of the dram is in the tasting and, on that front, J&B was able to overcome its inital bad impression.

On the palate, J&B was dry and peppery yet sweet with cherry, cocoa, and faint whispers of smoke. On the whole, it tasted somewhat muddled and undefined. By contrast, Grand Macnish had a more "coherent" or structured flavour with its sweetness consisting of synthetic cherry or Dr. Pepper accoding to one taster, cocoa, with an odd and off-putting metallic taste arriving just before the finish. Both finishes were improved with an ice cube but J&B was "easier to come back to."

In short, this was a very tight race but for all the wrong reasons. J&B won the round because it technically could be consumed while flasked to mitigate the dismal bouquet that accompanies the dram. None among us would feel comfortable serving either to a guest in a glass and neither dram held enough intrigue nor compelled us to take another sip.

Match 10

Vote 5-2: Winner Grant's Sherry Cask

This battle pitted two very different styles of blended scotch whisky against each other. Both contestants trounced their opponents in the first round and, based on our unanimous preference for both in their own battles, we were surprised that this contest wasn't closer.
Grant's Sherry Cask won the battle mostly on the merits of its nose, and the assembled company announced their preference for its straightforward sherry notes dappled with hints of citrus zest. By contrast, the minority vote preferred the rougher, sweet medicinal, and pencil eraser/peaty overtones of the maritime-styled Te Bheag.

As was the case in both previous battles, the two contestants' flavour and finish were generally improved with a dash of water but that is the extent of their similarities. I would characterize Grant's Sherry Cask as an after dinner dram or a drink to be enjoyed on a summer's eve whereas the Te Bheag would probably be more suitable as a stiff belt after a hard day's work or to be drunk in the dead of winter.

Te Bheag is undeniably drinkable and, in the opinion of the dissenters, a more arresting and remarkable dram than the Grant's Sherry Cask which won (I suspect) because it was more subdued, middling and straightforward than its competitor. The room must've had a sweet tooth that night and was won over by the easy-drinking style of Grant's Sherry Cask with its flavours of hard candy, vanilla extract, tart red licorice (nibs to be precise) accompanied by a dry and hot finish.

The majority claimed that Te Bheag's nose wasn't quaffable and the medicinal sweetness accompanying the peat and smoke coupled with the oily mouthfeel made this whisky, "a bottle you grab when you're already drunk."

At battle's end though, they were both winners as the judges were three sheets to the wind for the voyage home.