Paul Masson VS Grande Amber Brandy

The nose has pear, cherry, spice, and maybe a little orange. It's nice but mellow. The palate has this awful, cloying caramel flavor. It just pervades. There's some odd mushroom too. It reminds me a bit of Corralejo Reposado, but more cloying. Actually, the two are quite similar, but the viscous sweetness of this is too much. The fruits taste artificial as well. There's this gross grape jelly flavor that is hard to get past. The spices come through a lot in a Christmas way with some prickling more than in a fiery way. It's pretty awful. It's hard to describe how much worse than Hennessy VS and E&J XO this is. There's a weird honey flavor here with some bitterness and mushrooms. It tastes a bit like tar and gasoline too. There is some caramel and vanilla to give it some nice creaminess, but this is not all that believable in its insistence that it is brandy. It's simultaneously too sweet and too bitterly mushroomy. This doesn't taste natural. It's really awful.

Inside a Hennessy snifter, I got nothing on the nose, just *something* sweet. *Some* candy.... The sip going down is spicy, sweet and smooth. Crazy at this price, quite enjoyable to sip. I kinda wanna try it next to Courvoisier and Henny VS. I feel like it'd take an easy bronze metal if not conquering them both. Till then this is the end of my review. ...And the end of this 200ml. ;-)

Nose - banana, vanilla cream, Nilla Wafer, toffee, brown sugar, cherry, grape, high ethanol burn. Taste - brown sugar, banana, vanilla, toffee, grape, cherry, cinnamon, prickly barrel spice, high alcohol bite, finishing fast with chemically vanilla, caramel, and spicy oak flavors. It’s chemically and cloying and hot. Definitely not a sipper.

As a modestly priced entry, it's not bad at all. There's not a lot of complexity here but I'll judge it based on what it is. I use this all the time for infusions, cooking and making cocktails. As a sipper, it's not terrible. It's just not robust and refined however, I do find it rather smooth for only being $22/1.75 L. A good bar stocker.

A mellow nose of grape/wine with nutty oaken notes, hints of vanilla and fruits, a smooth but turns peppery spicy body, mild fruity grapes, with a grape juice reminder, hints of vanilla and woody oak, rich and nutty, a thick viscous mouthfeel, with a spicy fruity grape, vanilla, and oak finish. Tasted neat.

I ventured into the land of low-cost Brandies again and tried this well-received offering from Paul Masson. It was okay. It had nice flavors and it coated the glass nicely but the flavors were not a lively as the E&J XO brandy. For the cost, it is a good deal but I did like the flavors it is $13 in my area.