Overrated Whisk(e)ys

Wow, @KRB80—I didn't know there was a brush broad enough to paint "everything coming out of Diageo"!

What's this house profile you're picking up on? In which whiskies?

Maybe it's just the taste of water & E150.

@MadSingleMalt It's not particularly describable other than I can equate it to most beers coming from the same brewery take on a certain profile underneath the forefront flavors of each particular style due to the brewery using a "house yeast strain."

@KRB80 Diageo does put out some decent stuff. Caol Ila comes to mind.

@Nozinan, or you might say: "Diageo manages to not ruin the stuff from many great distilleries."

I'd agree with Dalmore and just about anything lately from Macallan.

HP18 was amazing when I first had a bottle about 10 years ago, but seems to have gone down in quality as the price has gone up. I've currently got a bottle of HP18 and a bottle of Arran 18 open and I'd say that although the HP18 is a decent whisky still the Arran is the better of the two and a third cheaper.

I'm going to be slightly controversial here and nominate a whisky I haven't tried.

Octomore. I really can't stand gimmicky things and especially gimmicky whisky. Whisky to my mind should be a straight forward drink. Not some science experiment (look it's 135ppm) served up in an oversized aftershave bottle. All with edition numbers to directly appeal to the got-to-have-every-edition collectors.

I'm sure it's actually decent whisky. But £130 for a 5 year old whisky?

I'll give it a miss thanks.

@Wierdo, I mostly agree with you about Octomore. I haven't had any of the special (X.2, X.3, etc.) versions, but the standard X.1 versions don't seem all that different from your reasonably priced peat monsters like Laphroaig 10 CS or Ardbeg Corryvreckan or an decent CS indie Caol Ila. I'd love to try one of those X.2 versions, but I won't pay the asking price for an X.1 version again. It's not worth 3 times the price of Laphroaig 10 CS. Not even close.

I disagree with this sentiment, though: "But £130 for a 5 year old whisky?" You have to assign a value to whisky based on the experience of drinking it, not on the number of solar laps it completed. To come at it the other way, a reasonably priced whisky isn't automatically worth its price tag if it's old, right? So why would an expensive whisky automatically not be worth its price tag if it's young?

@Wierdo I've never had an Octomore either. I'd love to try one sometime, but like you, I'm not willing to take a chance at that price. I also have an impression that there is a fair degree of machismo involved in consuming those levels of peat. The more peat and the higher the ABV, the bigger the man?

@Wierdo - I hear what you're saying and I doubt I'd pay that much for any whisky. I have tried an 8 year old IB of Octomore (Rest & Be Thankful) though and it was exceptionally good stuff.

I have to agree with @MadSingleMalt 's point as well, in that a good whisky could be young or a not so good one old etc. My main gripe with the whisky industry in general, with age statements, is that they use it as a barometer of quality and charge accordingly; so I feel they should at least be consistent if they go down that route - hence the NAS 'controversy'.

I'd expect older whiskies to cost more as they have sat in a warehouse for x no. of years at a cost to the distillery. I reckon the profit margin on Octomore will be rather high . . .

@RianC I, too agree with @MadSingleMalt's point that age should not be the sole determinant of price, but the fact remains, the industry has traditionally priced according to age and they have set several generations of whisky drinkers up to believe that older is better and that older therefore costs more. Their is a lot of good, young whisky available (Kilchoman comes to mind) but the distillers do themselves no favours by continuing to put out overpriced NAS crap. Highland Park and Macallan are among the worst offenders lately.

I think we need to differentiate the term "over-rated" from the term "over-priced".

Octomore, from the 3 or 4 versions that I have tasted, is not over-rated. It may (especially in Ontario), be over-priced. Uigeadail, in Ontario, is overpriced. I've tasted from 2 bottles. Neither was over-rated.

I think Dalmores may be over-rated and over-priced.

Lambertus is not over-rated. It is crap. But it is overpriced at any price.

I agree with what you've all said and realise it's a bit silly for me to say a whisky I've never tried is overrated.

I understand that a whisky should be judged on it's merits alone and leave the price tag out of it.

But truth be told. I'm a consumer of whisky in both senses and I'm on a budget. I've never paid £130-150 for a bottle of whisky (which is what Octomore goes for). I've broken £100 (just) a couple of times. I could afford to spend £130+ on a bottle of whisky if I saved up for a couple of months (and didn't tell the wife!). But then there's the other thing. I've only ever drank something older than 20 years 4 or 5 times in over 10 years as a whisky drinker. Because generally aged whiskies are expensive. And whilst old doesn't mean quality it does seem more understandable that a whisky that was put into a cask whilst you were still in school will cost a lot compared to something that you think 'I've got pairs of shoes older than this whisky'.

So for the sort of money they ask for a bottle of Octomore I'd want something that had a bit of age to it.

@Wierdo Price threshold is different from over-rated.

I'm sure there are some Broras, Port Ellens, etc that are really good, but I can't afford them.

@MadSingleMalt, @Wierdo and @BlueNote I guess I am one of those suckers collecting up Octomore series. My first acquisition of Octomore was made in local corner store in Islay back in 2011 (traveling). It was 2.1 listed for £80. When I returned to Canada and sampled it I knew right away I got something magic and very special. Then I started to hunt for rest of editions. Over the years Octomore has grown with slight different characters. Their x.1 being the core Octomore profile while x.2 has little more experimental approach. The whole series was the pet project of then master blender Jim McEwan until his retirement. The 7th edition is the last edition directly under his watch. (edit: due to popular demand Jim agrees to stay on for a few more years).

What's so special about Octomore (to me)? Well this is the only scotch managed to pack extremly high level of peat and smoke (and ABV) and yet managed in smooth delivery through tight package. Young malt provided raw energy and unshameful youthfulness, the balance and complexity is pure engineering genius. Try add water it will break and become very punishing, that's how tight the whole package is.

As money for value, I agree it's too inflated especially the newer editions. I personally stop collecting after 7.1 and frankly there isn't much difference between 3.1- 7.1. The episode is getting too long, even for Jim McEwan.

@Nozinan True. I don't know for sure that Octomore is overrated. I may try it one day and fall in love. However I very strongly suspect it's overrated. Because it's almost been designed to be so as @BlueNote says there seems to be a machismo and a bit of silliness around peated whiskies. PPM was a rating that was made up a few years ago (I believe by Bruichladdich) to rate these whiskies I would argue in part at least so they could create hype around them and then overcharge customers.

'Wow that's expensive. £140 for a 5 year old whisky.'

'Yeah but it's 130ppm. Lagavulins only 45ppm. Imagine what 130ppm will be like.'

etc.

Personally I find it difficult to separate overrated from overpriced. Price is part of it for me.

If HP18 was £40 a bottle I'd rate it as a 90-95 points whisky. Because in that price range it would be better the pretty much everything else around. But at £100+ a bottle it would drop down to the 85+ points bracket because there are quite a few better whiskies around for the same price or even a bit less.

In a perfect world, we’d be able to (affordably) taste whiskies blind before knowing anything about price, brand name, ABV, age, etc. Taste should be our primary concern. But so many things affect our perceptions that it’s hard to remain impartial. More than once, I’ve considered unfollowing all my Facebook whisky groups. I’ve thought about giving up the blog. One of my best friends who has far more money (and far less time) than I do just buys whiskies, tastes them and decides if he’ll re-purchase. He does no research whatsoever. The nerd in me dies a little each time we talk, but it works for him. He texted me a picture of his new bottle The Dalmore 18 Year Old this week and told me he loves it. I replied, “looks awesome”. I’m not going to be that a-hole who gives unsolicited advice, and at the same time, I was a bit jealous. I don’t think I’d be able to fully enjoy that whisky because of all the marketing silliness around THE Dalmore.

I also concur HP 18 is massively overrated (guess only MacAllan tops it). HP used to be my favourite 18 yo at Cd$90-95 retail just a few years ago. I remember HP 18 had the power of transporting you from highland to west coast, if you just let in bit more time in mouth. The transition was whispery quiet, yet undefinable. Nowadays it's priced at Cd$180-190 retail and I won't buy it even at original 90 price tag.

@gfc I also find it hard to get on board with Balvenie 12 DW, tried it and a bit meh as was the 17 DW for my tastes. Love the 14 Caribbean cask though.

Regarding the Octomores overpriced yes overrated probably not I admit to having a soft spot for them and when I want a real wind down drink I usually reach for an Octomore. One small dram is savoured over 2 or 3 hours and all the cares of the world are washed away.

Replaced HP18 in my cabinet with Springbank 15 just on price to quality ratio, personally didn’t get the hype for the HP on opening but after a month until probably last couple of drinks (should have decanted earlier rather than gas) nearly 18 months later was worth the £90 new price £110 with new bottling and variety of reviews about drop in quality, I will not be taking the risk.

@BlueNote, Octomore's high-peat thing is even a bit of a farce. They get to plaster some stratospheric numbers on the tin, but I never thought it really tasted that much peatier. Some people rave about the smoke levels in reviews, but I've never seen a blind review where the guy is like "A is pretty good, B is pretty good, C IS OH MY GOD SO SMOKY CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, D is pretty good."

I suspect people are right who say humans have a "peat ceiling" to what we can perceive, and extra peat beyond that point adds nothing to the experience.

@RianC, I'm sure you're right that the profit margin on Octomore is high. I'm OK with that. They're making a product that people value highly (even if I don't). The promise that retail prices will far exceed production costs is the fundamental basis for the very existence of every single product sold in every single store in every single capitalist society.

I always think it's weird that aging is the only production cost that whisky buyers seem willing to pay for. Allow me to repeat something I once said on another site. (Apologies to readers of "The Scotch Noob" for the potential deja vu.)

(Copy paste)

We should totally disabuse ourselves of the notion that prices should be bear relation whatsoever to ANY production costs—and not just the costs of aging.

Producers can do all sorts of things that cost money and that might improve (or at least affect) a whisky’s quality or perceived value. Here are a few:

•Put it in a wood cask for a long time

•Buy better casks

•Pour the whisky over a model's body before bottling (that was real a few years ago, wasn’t it?)

•Peat the malt

•REALLY peat the malt

•Use local barley

•Bespokify the casks

•Dilute it with less (or no) water

•Age it in a warm climate

•Age it in a cool climate

•Age it in a four-seasons climate

•Stick it on a boat for a while

•Make it survive a tornado

•Take a smaller heart cut

•Double-distill

•Triple-distill

•Advertise

•Put it in a cool bottle

•Multi-vintage

•Bottle single casks

If you’re looking for your bottle price to be something like (A+B+C + 5% profit margin), then you got some problems. First, good luck figuring out what the costs of A, B, and C are. Second, why the hell would you even care? Is it because you feel ripped off if your retail price is way higher than A+B+C? Do you want to go through their cost accounting to select which costs you WILL pay for and which you WON’T? It’s a fool’s errand.

@MadSingleMalt - The Scotch Test Dummies did a blind peated shoot out recently. They don't profess to be experts and they won't be everyone's cup of tea but Octomore was in there and lost out to Ardbeg 10 iirc. It certainly didn't make it past the first heat.

Totally subjective but it goes some way to backing up your point.

I'd say that an IB Port Charlotte 12 year old I tasted at a festival 'seemed' more peaty than the Octomore 8 I tried just after. The latter was certainly intense though.

I have tried Octomore 7.1 and 8.2 and found them very enjoyable. I was initially put off by the hype but it's not an over-rated whisky to me. I agree that once you get past a certain level of peat the jump doesn't seem so extreme.

Definitely the Macallan for me. But maybe I just haven't found one I liked yet.

@MadSingleMalt totally agree regarding the peat levels never thought of Octomores as more peated and/or smokey than many other Islay expressions. It is more about the subtlety and nuance achieved from the cask, youth and punch from the ABV. I have absolutely no idea how they make it work but it just does.

I have no issue dropping £140 on an Octomore but £110 on HP18 is too rich for my wallet which says a lot IMHO.

@Pete1969 I recall @Victor saying a few years back that HP 18 needs a great deal of air time (6 months +) before it comes into its own. I think things have changed with HP18 to the extent that even that is no longer very effective. And there's the price.

@Pete1969's comment about Octomore v HP 18 says volumes.

@MadSingleMalt Point taken.

@Nickh, I agree with you, (after 40 - 50 ppm) the incremental increase in peat is not directly proportional to the added effect on the palate, it increases at a diminishing rate. I find the x.2 versions of Octomore are not as big and bold as the x.1 versions and are somewhat tamer than 160 - 200 ppm might suggest. The cask selection for x.2 is magnificent and compliments the heavy peat, it certainly does not amplify the peat. The x.1 versions are BIG! The x.2 versions are Beautiful! At the right price, CDN $130 - $150, Octomore gets the green light from me. I have owned seven bottles of Octomore, the most expensive, $136 per bottle.

For me it’s Lagavulin 16. Every increasing price and ever decreasing quality. Also most of the Buffalo Trace SB’s Elmer, Blantons, Rock Hill farms as well as Weller 12. Tbf their quality isn’t being questioned but the price they command is. None of them should be even $100 bourbons but they command way more in my area. Obscene pricing and you’re more likely to find something like a JPS16 (which I did this week) on a shelf at retail than any of these bourbons.

Ralfy talked about peat levels in one of his vlogs. The made up measure of PPM is pretty much nonsense as it relates to the phenol concentration in the barley prior to distillation occurring. There are so many variables to do with everything that occurs during and after distillation that have just a big an influence on the peatiness of the finished product as the peat levels in the barley prior to distillation.

It makes comparing the PPM of one whisky with another nonsense. As RianC said in a blind test people thought Ardbeg was peatier than Octomore yet Ardbeg has less than half the PPM of Octomore.

When I first really got the whisky bug HP 18 was one of those malts I had put on a pedestal without ever tasting it due to its reputation.

I've still never tasted it but have seen the price go from £60 - 70 to +£110 and most knowledgeable folk proclaim the quality has decreased.

I think it's fair to assume then that HP 18 is overrated and over priced!

@Wierdo @MadSingleMalt - I saw the same Ralfy vlog; it makes sense, really.

From what I gather Octomore was an experiment that happened to work out. I think the high peat level is a bit gimmicky but if the whisky tastes good . . . I still think it's over-priced, mind.

I have a Benromach Peated that states it's 67 ppm. That's pretty high for any peated malt, bar Oct, and I'm curious to see how it comes across.