Liquorists

Time to get my hands onto a scotch whiskey this time, glen talloch blended scotch whiskey to be precise.
This is a relatively famous whiskey in the Netherlands. More info about that on this website.

This gold yellow coloured whiskey smells a bit less sweet then your average whiskey, with almost no smoke on the nose. Quite a nice smelling whiskey.
In the taste itself there is remarkably little smokyness aswel, and all your senses get bombarded with the pure whiskey taste. Nothing of the taste gets hidden in the smoke this way, and that isn't a bad thing in this case. While the very first hint is a sweet one, later on you get a more pure woody after taste. A bit on the bitter side but not in a bad way.
The after taste itself remains prominent for a minute or so, but is yet subtile in the same time.

When mixing with coke, the whiskey smell remains the prominent smell, but it does mellow out. Taste wise the coke really mellows the whiskey out, so even non whiskey drinkers might even enjoy it. Also the after taste gets allot less. A little alcohol burn down the throat will still remind you that you are drinking a strong spirit (40% or 80 proof).

All in all this is a very approachable whiskey, with hardly any of the offensive whiskey flavours going on that might put people off. More suprising is that this whiskey is more on the lower budget range with around €15,- for a 70CL bottle. Not a surprise that this whiskey is the best selling whiskey in the Netherlands.
It's a very old 100% scotch whiskey, with allot of single malts blended in.

Definatly worth a try if you are into, or maybe even if you aren't yet into whiskey.

Website: Here

No unfortunatly i'm not. But some people are, as you can read here.
Jeff Arnett is the master distiller at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, and his job uncludes like you can read in the link above, tasting the whiskey.

I bet there are quite a few people jealous of him right now.

Time for some whiskey, Famous Grouse whiskey to be precise.
I have 4 types here to review now, but i'll start off with these 2 and will make a new one for the remaining two.

To start off, it's a scotch whiskey, containing the usual 40% alcohol (80 proof).
The Finest beeing around €24,- a liter, and the blended around €28,-.

Both liquids are yellow gold ish in collor as you can see on the pictures, but the blended whiskey is a bit darker.
The Finest will ofcourse have your typical whiskey smell, but it's a bit on the sweet and mild side. Maybe some hints of honey.
While the Blended has a heavy oaky smell to it.

The Finest has a bit of a malty sweet taste to it, and the alcohol will imidiatly numb the tongue a bit. On the aftertaste you will notice a stronger wood taste then when you first sip it. The Blended whiskey will have a more smoother taste with less of an alcohol attack, and allot more wood and smokey flavours to it.

Both rather typical whiskey's to me personally, and besides the differences i just mentioned, not too different.
The Blended one does seem to be smoother and easier to drink, but you will have to deal with a far more heavy smoke flavour aswel then.
Since i'm not a huge whiskey fan, these haven't been able to convince me personally. But i will probably edit a few more details in when comparing them with the other two, both 12 year old, so i can give a more proper explanation between the quality of the four. And in general

If you can't wait and want more information about this Scotch whiskey brand, visit their site here!.

While wanting to write out a few things about vodka first, i came across a serie of youtube videos about the history of whiskey, interesting enough to link here.

To save room on the page i only embedded the first of 6. Just click the links below to watch the rest of the videos on youtube.




Part2
Part3
Part4
Part5
Part6

For how distillation itself works, and the history of that, check out the following links:

Part1
Part2
Part3
Part4
Part5