Blended Scotch recommendations

@OdysseusUnbound , I rarely drink blends myself, but I've seen this discussion enough times to know the popular answers:

•Pretty cheap but OK: Teacher's, Famous Grouse, Jameson, Powers

•A little pricier and totally decent: Black Grouse, JW Black, Te Bheag

•Nearly as good as single malts and just as expensive: JW Green, anything from Compass Box

•Single malts that are sometimes as cheap as a decent blend: Glenmo 10, Knappogue Castle 12, Speyburn 10

If you like a bit of peat, I recommend getting the cheapest blend you find "passable" and spiking it with a healthy dash of, say, Laphroaig 10.

And if you live in the US, then bourbon is another clear budget-stretcher.

@Ol_Jas Thanks. I'm in Ontario, Canada, so NOTHING is inexpensive. I like Té Bheag, but I don't want to spend $40, which is the same problem I run into if I buy bourbon. I like Elijah Craig 12, but it's almost $50...Perhaps I'll try the Famous Grouse Smoky Black.

Thanks for the recommendation

If you want to serve guests whiskey which is inexpensive, you could serve them Black Velvet. It is Canadian. So I think it must be cheap. I remember the taste of Black Velvet as extremely sweet and smooth. Otherwise I would advise you Johnnie Walker Black or Double Black.

I am sorry that I connected cheap with Canadian. I wanted to say that because Black Velvet is made in Canada it is sold cheap. In Holland Black Velvet is a low budget whiskey. I do not wish to insult Canada in any way.

Not a scotch, but Alberta Premium Dark Horse is a cheaper option. Fine to sip and often goes on sale for $30.

@NamBeist No offense taken. I'm Canadian and there are very few Canadian whiskies I've tried AND liked. Johnnie Walker Black sells for $55 here, so it isn't cheap.

@OdysseusUnbound, if you are limited to buying from the LCBO, then you might do just as well listing the ones you can get and are considering, and then soliciting feedback on them. Or reading reviews of them.

I see that you can get Islay Mist 8 yo. That is an above average Laphroaig-heavy blend. Too bad you missed the LCBO's offering of the 50% ABV Cutty Sark Prohibition. That is a good one.

There are several old Connosr discussions where this is hashed and re-hashed. Whiskies like Johnnie Walker Green Label, Compass Box Oak Cross and Spice Tree (and some other CBs) are blended malts, and not grain and malt blends, so it is not surprising that they cost and taste like malts.

@Nock and I, both 70% ABV whisk(e)y preferers, are big fans of mild-mannered Grant's Family Reserve. We've had good experiences, but there are reports of some bad batches/bottles there, too (e.g. @cherylnifer). Any big mass-produced whisky can have bad batches.

@Victor I really like Islay Mist 8. It's my go-to budget scotch (along with Té Bheag) when money is tight. I'm currently torn between:

• Famous Grouse Smoky Black
• Alberta Premium Dark Horse (I hadn't even considered a Canadian whisky)
• Grant's Family Reserve

I know cheaper blends are not as complex or tasty, but I still like to try new things and I have never tried any of the three aforementioned whiskies. And, being a selfish oaf, I don't want to waste my Springbank 10 on unappreciative philistines. ;)

@OdysseusUnbound, you pay too much for whisky in Ontario to give it to people who will not appreciate it. I can enjoy all three of the ones you mentioned. Even that little bit of straight sherry added to Alberta Premium Dark Horse does not put me off (enough to turn down a taste of it). I am not buying AP Black Horse, because I have a bunch of stored premium Canadian whisky. My guess is that you'll like the Black Grouse the most.

I consider Grant's Family Reserve to be the Universal Solvent. Assuming you get a representative good bottle, I find that it can be used as a blending agent with just about anything if you have a need/desire to improve some other Scotch(es) which is(are) lacking.

@OdysseusUnbound Maybe White Horse blended scotch is an alternative. It is told that it contains Lagavulin. Jim Murray gives this whisky a score of 95 points .I doen not know whether it is sold in Canada, but it is very unexpensive

@NamBeist, @OdysseusUnbound is legally supposed to buy only from the LCBO. Legally he is not even supposed to get it elsewhere in Canada. (This does not stop the continuous wagon train whisky supply from coming overland from Calgary, the low tax capital for whisk(e)y in Canada.) No White Horse on LCBO.com. That's why I suggested starting from what he CAN GET.

I know a few great blends which you also cannot get...but why mention them?

@NamBeist Sadly, it is not sold here in Ontario. I don't want to get overly political, but suffice it to say we get screwed here (on price and selection) because the government is our only licensed retailer of fine (and not-so-fine) spirits.

I would recommend serving something reasonably good and encouraging your guests to appreciate it.

As @Paddockjudge espouses: "Great whisky can be enjoyed by all, but GOOD WHISKY SHARED WITH FRIENDS BECOMES LEGEND".

@Nozinan I tend to agree. I have a few friends with whom I share good whisky. But my brother and mother simply don't like the same thing as me. My mother, bless her heart, told me that Caol Ila 12 was "the worst thing" she'd ever tasted, even with ice. When the whisky comes out, my family members all tend to say "oh, I'll try that" and then add copious amounts of ice....and then not really like it and throw it away. Springbank 10 costs about $95 here and it's hard to find. Maybe I'll just buy more beer ;)

@OdysseusUnbound, all the more reason to taste with whisky friends when you have the opportunity.

@Victor Here's hoping that can happen !

I was gonna writecutty sark prohibition as well, really good stuff at a ridiculously low price point. At least in Sweden.

Does it have to be scotch? Cause otherwise here's a few sub-$40 recommendations I'd not hesitate to serve to anyone, be they whisky fans or more casual drinkers:

• Hiram Walker Special Old ($26.45) (severely underrated as far as I'm concerned)
• Four Roses ($27.70)
• Canadian Club 100% Rye ($28.65)
• George Dickel No. 12 ($30.20)
• Jim Beam Black ($31.70)
• Gibson's Finest 12 YO ($32.65) (bonus: now available in a Canada 150 edition at no extra charge)
• Crown Royal Northern Harvest ($35.20) (bonus: last year's World Whisky status may be seen as a plus)
• Wild Turkey 101 ($35.70)
• Bulleit Bourbon ($37.30)

@Nelom Thanks for the recommendations. I have tried quite a few of those. I was a bourbon guy before I got into scotch. I still really like bourbon, for the record. I'm a big fan of Elijah Craig 12. Nothing fancy, but it's reliably good neat or on ice. Never tried Gibson's. Might be interesting.

Thanks to everyone for their help and recommendations. I ended up buying Grant's Family Reserve. I tested it last night. Initial impressions: decent for the price, but obviously nothing to rave about. I'll test it some more and maybe even give it a review later. Not every review has to feature an eleventy billion dollar bottle, right?

Right!

@OdysseusUnbound, FWIW, I found my bottle of Grant's Family Reserve came together and got a lot better after it was open for a month.

@Victor It's funny, I always assume that a single malt needs to sit and "open up" to taste right, but I never really thought about blends this way, though it makes sense. FWIW, my Springbank 10, which I loved from the get-go has changed in the last month. Not better or worse, just different. The fiery pepperiness has settled down a bit, though it's still got pepper notes, but it feels richer and sweeter now. It's interesting to experience this chameleon effect.

@OdysseusUnbound, every progressive stage of air exposure changes a whisky. It is a different beast at every time point. Sometimes those changes are subtle, and sometimes they can be extreme. If you want to see the changes partially detailed over time in an unusual way, check out the reviews of @systemdown. He has done some reviews in which he actually does multiple reviews of the same bottle at different time points. It is a LOT of work, but it gives a much more complete picture.

@OdysseusUnbound I have found this effect particularly inherent in Springbanks, though the ones I've had have all been CS. Even though I tend to gas, I do find if the can survive a year in my cabinet the effect is very noticeable. Or my palate changes over that time. Either way, it's a positive change.

@Victor I've been thinking about this a bit lately. You describe the phenomenon very well. My curiosity was raised again recently when I bought a bottle of Bunnahabhain 12 and started reading various reviews - I couldn't believe how different they were from each other. (yes I am aware the whisky was changed from 40% to 46.3% just a few years ago). I wonder if it is partly due to a dramatic change over time in the bottle? Time will tell. I do find it surprising when you see some video reviews where the reviewer opens a new bottle and then samples it immediately. I think we've all experienced how different it can be after a bit of exposure to some air. Sorry, I've gone off on a tangent from the intent of the original post.

@Hewie No need to apologize. I got my recommendations and I'm happy to have started something that grew into a larger discussion. I'll be posting a review of Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye (on my blog) soon and I touch on this same subject. I've had three bottles of the stuff in the last two years and my notes are different for all of them. The last bottle I had was incredibly different from the previous two, though they were different from each other as well. My first bottle of CRNHR was the most "chameleon-esque", but it also lasted the longest, which supports the point several others have made here. I don't do anything special to preserve my open bottles, other than keep them in my liquor cabinet, where the sunlight does NOT get at them.

@OdysseusUnbound, you will contribute a very great service on Connosr if when you do your review(s) of Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye, that you note the differences among your three differing bottles. When someone like Mr Murray names a whisky the finest in the World it is very interesting and useful to have significant variations in bottles and batches noted.

@Victor I will certainly share the notes I have from each bottle, but unfortunately these are just flavout/tasting notes as I only learned about noting batch numbers since coming to this site.

@OdysseusUnbound They've stopped printing batch numbers on Northern Harvest, so even if you had them they would've mostly been interesting from a curiosa point of view.

I've linked this on Connosr before, but whisky.buzz have a good write-up about this, including some tasting notes on different batches: whsky.buzz/blog/…