Whisky review: Shieldaig Speyside 18 Year

It's probably been looking like this blog has been neglected for the past few months...because it has. Eileen and I recently moved to the Phoenix, Arizona area and have been working on getting settled into our new life. I've still been sipping some drams, but just haven't managed to get them on here yet.

So now I'm back with some free time and some new bottles. One bottle I picked up recently is sold exclusively by Total Wine and More, a large chain that wasn't in Boston. This particular whisky is an independent bottling done just for Total by "Shieldaig." It's a no-name single malt, just given the title "Speyside," and we're told it's an 18-year-old. Price? $40. And due to an error by the check-out clerk (which I only realized when I looked at the receipt some time later), the bottle was charged to me as a 12-pack of beer, so it cost about $13.

I tried to pin the salespeople at Total down regarding the distillery the whisky comes from, but they apparently couldn't remember or find it; I don't think they were trying to hide it from me, because one woman I asked spent some time trying to figure it out. So it's quite the mystery, and I was excited to try the whisky, though I didn't have huge expectations.

$13 for an 18-year-old single malt scotch. A good deal? We'll see...

Shieldaig Speyside 18 Year, 40% ABV

Single malt scotch whisky (Speyside)

Nose: A butterscotch sweetness and some sherry.

Palate: Light sherry, ripe fruit (red apples, plums) and some less-than-optimal wood.

Finish: Sort of ok (fruit again) at first and then...ghastly. *gag* The aftertaste of this whisky haunted me the first few times I tried it. It tastes like bubble gum that you've been chewing for two hours and only has a kind of nasty, rubbery taste left to it. Plus a little wood.

Rating (of 100): 31. The nose is really the only appealing part of this whisky. The lingering finish makes me want to dump this bottle, but I think I'll keep it around for any uninvited and exceptionally annoying guests.

This bottle actually decreased my interest in whisky the first few times I drank it, to the point where I got to wondering whether I really was still very interested in whisky. Some Old Pulteney brought me back to my senses.

If you buy this whisky, be prepared to have wasted between $13 and $40. I wouldn't even give this away to someone because I fear what it could do in the wrong hands.

Whisky review: Clan MacGregor

This is a blended Scotch whisky and, according to a number of online sources, is made primarily of malt whisky from the Kininvie distillery, blended with a high percentage of grain whisky. Kininvie is owned by William Grant & Sons, the company that also owns Glenfiddich, The Balvenie, Ailsa Bay (a new distillery), and Tuthilltown Spirits (a U.S. whiskey distillery).

Kininvie malt is not bottled by the distillery as a single malt. When we were in Scotland in 2010 and took the Balvenie tour, I asked the tour guide why Kininvie's malt is not sold on its own. He said something to the effect of, "It's not really appropriate for being bottled as a single malt." This means it tastes like crap.

The bottle also says it's aged for "thirty-six months" (also known as three years, the minimum to be legally called Scotch whisky), though this should not necessarily mean it is of poor quality. Other whiskies, such as the Port Charlottes and especially the Kilchomans, are bottled very young and have gotten great reviews. Though those are single malts, I see no inherent reason why a three-year-old blended whisky should necessarily be "bad" if it's only aged three years. The fact that the bottle label put the whisky's age in terms of months, though, makes me wonder if the marketing folks wanted to make sure a bigger number was on the label in order to hide the fact that it's barely legal whisky. Actually, I'm sure they did...and really, I'm not sure why they wanted to mention the age at all.

So here we go, with the hopes that our tour guide's carefully-put statement and the apparent marketing ploy on the label will not cloud my judgment...

Clan MacGregor, 40% ABV
Blended Scotch whisky

Nose: Light and fruity, kind of like the standard Jameson. We're off to a decent start. Oh wait. After a bit more nosing, I really start to smell just ethanol and not much else.

Palate: The crap is beginning to really shine through here. Fruity crap, a bit of woody crap, and something in the back of my throat like charred crap.

Finish: Light fruits turning into crap.

Rating (of 100): 53. It would do in a pinch, like if the only other potential drinks you had were Drano and a full spittoon. I might still go for the spittoon, though, hoping one of its contributors had consumed a different whisky prior to use.

In the end, the remainder of my dram met the same fate a bottle of Drano would expect to meet.

Our 100th post!

I just wanted to write a short note to commemorate this as our 100th blog post. Eileen and I started this blog about a year ago and, while we haven't really spent a lot of time developing it (no need for any more people to tell me to get a dedicated URL...), it's been a fun way to share our perceptions and thoughts with the world.

Eileen and I will be moving to the Phoenix, Arizona area at the end of June, so we'll be reporting from there in the future.

Thank you for reading!