/\/\icah ([info]zeade) wrote,
@ 2007-08-19 00:19:00
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J&B
J&B smells like a sock but doesn't taste too bad with a beer and another different Scotch preceding it. As a third drink of the night it's hard to make a strong statement of quality that has any lasting, but I felt like writing (I should be doing work... on a Saturday, woo). At an $18 price point for a blended Scotch it's not bum quality liquor, very middle shelf, probably what you'd expect when you order an unnamed Scotch at a bar. I've been trying more blended Scotches since single malt hurts as a regular sorta drink. Dewar's has been my blended Scotch of choice thus far. The fact J&B smells so bad makes me wonder. It's the sort of smell I'd expect from a jar of freshly poured 160 proof grain alcohol. The taste is not strong, just a hint of peat after a sip, but it tastes overly refined, curtailed. In a blind taste I'd have a hard time knowing it was a Scotch if not for the aftertaste; I totally tried a sip with my eyes closed to confirm this.

Meanwhile, The Macallan 10 is still on sale at BevMo for $28.



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[info]pde
2007-08-19 03:18 pm UTC (link)
Way back in the day, I worked in a liquor store while I was in grad school. Aside from the horrible generic vodka-with-brown-food-coloring that we had private labeled as our store brand, the worst Scotch on the shelf was this truly crap stuff called Ballantine's. Comes in a bottle that's got a rectangular shape to it. Sometimes, you'll see it at *really* horrible dive bars as the call Scotch.

So one day, the wholesaler's salesman comes in on his regular weekly visit. We liked this guy, he was our main supplier, and all things considered he was a regular Joe. Told stories a lot. This particular day, he starts telling a story about getting a call from *his* supplier, an importer in New York City. The importer was wondering what had gone wrong- had they offended the wholesaler in some way? Because this particular wholesaler was one of the better customers they had for Ballantine's Scotch, and in recent months, their orders had notably dropped off.

So, says the wholesaler to us, he checked his own records, and it seems that our one store was the source of almost all of the dropoff in Ballantine's sales. What, he wondered, was the issue? Were we dissatisfied? Had he offended us to the point that we had stopped promoting Ballantines?

No, we said. Not at all. We really like you guys, and in fact we never really promoted Ballantine'e to begin with. The problem, we told him, was simple.

"The guy died."

One man was drinking so much rotgut Scotch that when he finally keeled over because of it, the importer noticed the effect.

That's about the time I decided that I really wasn't cut out to be a drug dealer.

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[info]zeade
2007-09-05 06:28 pm UTC (link)
Poor dead drunk :(. I've had the supposed better quality single malt Ballantine's a couple times and it's just never been a tasty Scotch to me for what it costs. I've never tried their gutrot.

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[info]catness
2007-08-19 05:50 pm UTC (link)
[info]2d00r says he wouldn't wash his windshield with Macallan 18. I have to remember to bring him something more suited to his tastes the next time I go to England.

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[info]zeade
2007-09-05 06:23 pm UTC (link)
2d00r is quite a snob! I haven't had Macallan 18. I have a bottle of Macallan 15 I need to open at some point. I lub the 10 year oak barrel stuff for the price point. One up from low-mid rung single malts I've enjoyed recently is the Glenfarclas 12 year (approx $40-50 at BevMo).

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[info]shandrew
2007-08-29 12:19 am UTC (link)
I have a secret affection for the trader joe's relabeled single malt scotches.

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[info]zeade
2007-09-05 06:16 pm UTC (link)
I've tried a couple of the Trader Joes labels, but the quality varies greatly it seems from bottle to bottle. Pretty decent for the cost though.

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