Glen Ness 12 Year Highland Single Malt

Rating: 5/23 This is a Total Wine store brand, so I have low expectations for it (despite the gouging at $3.50 for a 50 ml). The one hopeful thing about it is that it's a single malt. We'll see how much value that adds. N: I get cereal, but also some off notes. There's a combination of vegetal, industrial, and artificial sweetener notes, suggesting both that this is a young whisky and that too many tails and heads were added in. P: Yep, young. It's hard to imagine that this could be more than 3 years old. The vegetal notes are here but the cereal is stronger. The big problem though is that there is way too much of the heads in here. For such a young whisky, there really shouldn't be much of them, but this has a big industrial flavor and it feels like paint stripper on my tongue like Glen Logie, but with a nicer, less oily flavor. Yeah, side by side, there really is almost nothing to recommend Glen Logie, whereas this at least has some nice cereal notes. There are clearly less heads and tails in this than in Glen Logie, but there's still too much of them. The cereal and industrial flavors fight for dominance on the palate, with the industrial usually winning out. The vegetal hints at its presence from time to time and brings out a hint of caramel and malt, but it is never dominant. Those are really all of the flavors here, sadly. It's uncomplex, generally doesn't taste good, and is physically painful to drink. F: That paint stripper burn really sticks with me, but other than that, the finish is dominated by the cereal, so it's an improvement on the palate. If the whole dram were like the finish, it would still be a bad whisky. Grant's has more off notes, but it also has some nice hints of things like cinnamon and is substantially smoother. Drinking Grant's, I would be fairly sure I'd wake up the next day with my tongue in tact; with this, I'm not sure. I can kind of imagine throwing some wood chips in Grant's and fixing its problems, but I don't think that is possible with this. This is better than Glen Logie though by a couple of points. I should probably drop my Glen Logie review to a 3 though. This is harsher than Piper's Clan, but not so harsh as Glen Logie. Frankly, this is among the worst scotch I've had by a large margin. I mean, even Grant's is substantially better. I can't imagine giving this better than a 5. I mean, maybe I can imagine a 6, but that's pushing it. This is really a 3 to 4 and I'm settling on 4 because the cereal element is OK, but there's really a lot of rubber and other industrial flavors, so it's the finish that saves it. Holy cow, this costs $22?! Get a bottle of Sir Edward's 12 or Highland Queen Majesty Sauternes for less. Or two bottles of Grant's. Actually, maybe don't do that since Grant's is still pretty unpleasant to drink. If you only have $22 to spend, maybe look at a bourbon, gin, or rum instead.

Nose - honey, pear, cereal grain, floral notes, subtle sulphur, mild to moderate ethanol burn. Taste - pear, cereal grain, apple, hay, slight meatiness, bitter herbal and floral notes, moderate alcohol bite, finishing fast and bright with bitter dry grass and young grain flavors. This tastes like cheap blended scotch, but not quite as good. It’s obviously very young; the bright graininess is front and center. The worst part is the meaty sulphureous thread that runs through the entire experience. The one saving grace is the lightning fast finish. At least that meatiness doesn’t linger for long.

This is almost as bad as it gets. Neat, there is almost no taste at first then you get a whallop of burnt plastic and old caramel. When you add ice, it makes the whiskey so much worse. What was once almost tasteless will now assault your senses with a brutal astringency that should only be reserved for self punishment. Yeah, its cheap: but there are much tastier bottles that are just as cheap.

👀: yellow-amber. Legs stick around for a bit. 👃: no alcohol burn. Lots of vanilla and charred oak. A little black pepper. Not too complex. 👅: a little grainy sweet with vanilla. Tastes more of a burn than the nose but still not much. Very one dimensional. Overall: what a dud.

Much better the second time around. Getting the full bottle was better than the mini. Still not a whole lot of notes other than grain (again, almost reminiscent of corn for some reason) but less alcohol burn and a more pleasant bouquet this time around.

Rather faint nose of bread, oak, and hints of mint, citrus peel, and vanilla. Very little flavor; kind of bready with some vanilla and honey. Not off-putting but certainly not good. I’m glad I just bought the 50ml.