Great King Street

[Drubbing]

I was going to crap on Monstas Glenfarclas thread, but thought better.

Just so you know, I'm not a whisky expert, barely know the stuff. But I know what I like.

I mentioned King St elsewhere. I only bring it up again as I bought a disappointing single malt yesterday, and King St being a blend, it turned the whole malt/premium thing around.

I bought Glen Moray. Because it was on special. I thought it was the 10yo, and my scotch friend said it would be a decent buy at the price I mentioned, for the 10yo. Except when I double checked, it wasn't the 10 yo. But I though, what the hell. How bad could it be.

How about a rung above J&B Rare? A rather average blended mass market scotch. GM no age, is a one note wonder, without the wonder. It's malty, but reeks of, and tastes of spirit and little else. Not much to taste and no finish. After a few drams I've decided it's good for nothing other than scotch and coke.

I wished I'd gone back to Great King Street instead. It's a blend, they stick it in a 500ml bottle, so it doesn't sound like a great deal. But I think it is. A light whisky, I got a bit of honey and a fair bit of vanilla, soft on the alcohol and a finish wit flavours my lack of experience can't pick up. But it has some, which is more than GM.

Dan's sell it for less than $50, which is the essence of that 500ml marketing. Others, like Nicks over east are selling it for $75, which is no bargain at all.

I copy the Nicks link as the notes on it are better.
https://www.nicks.com.au/compass-box-great-king-street-artist-s-blend-blended-scotch-whisky-500ml

 

[RazorPlay]

I get the single malt attraction but I also get that there are some great tasting blends too, with full flavours. Haven't tried that one - will have to give it a go.

When I used to live in Tassie I drank a lot of Sullivan's Cove, which is very nice but a friend introduced me to Laphroaig (another of our mates calls it Lap Rag!) over here in Perth and since then I've become addicted to smoke... I also do a lot of smoking on my kamado BBQ, which just adds more fuel to the fire, if you pardon the pun!

 

[Drubbing]

I'm sorry to say Laphroaig is a drink that turned me off scotch completely for years, and all the cheap blends I tasted sort of reminded me of the TCP taste I hated in it.

I stuck with low/mid bourbons for sipping, but even the good ones were often too sweet, so scotch like King St and AncNoc were a big surprise. My scotch drinking friend dropped round to try me out on Johnny Walker green. It was pretty refined, but I wasn't won over and wouldn't drop that sort of money on it. But I don't have the experience to sort out the good blends from others. And much of it is knowing your personal presences and how to easily avoid what you won't like.

It can get way expensive to test stuff out without trying to get a grip on some basics like which regions styles you'll get on with. Even then it's not black and white.