Chivas Regal 12 Year Old

I have always taken a rather blinkered view of blended Scotch on my assumption that a single malt distillery wouldn't sell a barrel at trade price to a blender if that barrel was good enough to sell at retail price to the public.

Also I have tried most of the "general public" blended Scotchs (Bells, JW Red, Grouse) et cetera and I find them to be universally terrible.

Therefore my view of blended Scotches like this one which come in stupidly over-adorned silver boxes and have price tags the same or higher than single malts that I know are decent has therefore been to file them in the "not worth the bother" category. (Albeit I make an exception for JW Blue which I will also review soon).

However a pre-Christmas offer in a supermarket put a half bottle of what I have previously referred to as the "Regal Chav" at not much more than a tenner, so I thought I'd give it a go and see if my predjudice was warranted.

So, first impressions after taking it out of stupid silver box - fairly dark whisky, almost certainly caramel, although I can't find that written on the bottle anywhere in the usual German(why don't they force distillers to do it in this country?). Screw cap - not a good sign. Standard 40%.

Right, neat test first. Nose of citrus and I think apricots. Very sweet. Taste is very heavy caramel although with quite a light feel. Again, very sweet. No noticeable finish, just the same citrus/caramel, a bit like orange fudge in fact.

Ice makes it cold, water makes it weaker, but niether make any noticeable changes to the taste. Mixing it with ginger ale is a waste of time as its flavours aren't robust enough to come through. Would imagine mixing it with Cola would be equally pointless so didn't bother to try.

Best just to drink it neat then, and, even if I do say this of a blended, it is worth drinking neat. It's not JW Blue, it's not that Aberlour with the gaelic name I can't spell and it's certainly not Glenlivet Nadurra, but it is an eminently drinkable whisky. The sweetness and the caramel taste lead it to lack a certain subtltlety and I would have preferred a better finish, but for the money you can't really complain...

...except for the fact that it costs the same as Glenlivet's ordinary 12 YO which is in the same general taste area but for my money (and that is, after all, what I would spend, that is what I would buy in future).

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