Regrettable Purchases

@Onibubba For me it's gotta be the Glenfarclas 12 yr, and the Auchentoshan 12 yr.

@Onibubba I too have had some bad purchases. For me it would have to be Auchentoshan Select, Auchentoshan Classic, Glenrothes Select Reserve, Speyburn Brad Orach. These were just plain disappointing. :(

Anything over $60 is a rare splurge for me, so I don't have any $100 mistakes, but one that comes to mind is when I dropped $70 on Redbreast 12 Cask Strength back when it came out and was all the rage. Wow, what a dud whisky! Nothing off-putting, but so boring and nothing to draw me in. Veiled flavors. Sounds like your Glendronach 18 experience.

I have several cheaper regrets, but those are more frequent since quality should in theory follow cost: Old Forester Birthday Bourbon (antiseptic, anyone?), Black Maple Hill bourbon (I think there's some Old Forester in here), Glenmorangie 10 (this reminds me of spring blossoms that I am very allergic to).

@valuewhisky Was it this year's Birthday Bourbon? Bought that one too. Wow. What a kick in the face. Nothing subtle about that sucker.

Thanks so much for your feelings on the Redbreast. I was considering that one for St. Pat's. Another whisky everyone seems to adore.

Leviathan 1 without a doubt. I bought two, nearly choked drinking the first, use much of it in meaty stews, blended the rest with anything I could. I'll keep the other bottle until I'm 80, 30 years hence, then try to sell it. Tastes like bad Chinese plum wine. Other regrettable purchases: Speyburn Singleton, Dalmore Cigar, Auchentoshan Classic, Lismore. But hey discovery is part of the adventure. Most are awesome.

I thought that a'bunadh #41was nothing short of a catastrophe and an expensive one at that!

Slainte!

The only whisky I really regret getting was the Dalwhinnie 15yo, not really bad was just really boring. Considering it was aged for 15 years (me and a friend had a joke about it: "could it be that it was aged in glass and finished in wood?") it was unbelievable how bland the bottle I got was.

Hellyer's Road Peated Single Malt is probably my number one biggest disappointment. I really enjoyed the original when my wife and I were in Margaret River so when the chance to purchase the peated version came along I grabbed a bottle immediately. It is peated, but it's very unpleasant, artificial almost at times with none of the pleasure that I associate with peat. It's been in my cabinet for months now and I have a hard enough time mixing it with coke. There goes $80 odd AUS which isn't too much thankfully.

Canadian Club 12 yr old is the other one. Purchased it off the whisky bible recommendation and all I can say is that it smells and tastes like permanent marker. Absolutely foul.

Glenlivet 16 yr old Nadurra, not bad, but very boring. Floral honey and not much else. This is the one that I regret the most as I had such high expectations of it from all the reviews I'd read. $115 dollars that could have been better spent on whisky.

After those 3 whiskies it's extremely rare for me to purchase a bottle that I haven't tasted before so more often then not these days I just keep bringing in samples of whiskies, trading for whisky samples, etc. Mind you even though I was disappointed with those 3 whiskies and there is no way I'd ever purchase them again, in no way do I regret those purchases. It's all about learning more!

As Wodha said it's all part of the fun and the journey! Even the unfortunate stuff :D

Definitely Makmyra first edition. Prolly just gonna force friends to drink it for me when they visit.

@Onibubba Mine was OFBB 2011. Not sure how much variation there is year-to-year - this was my first and last bottle of it!

@Jason0142 I'm surprised more people don't comment on this with all of Diageo's single malts. I find them all to be aged in very tired wood that has a strange "dead" sort of flavor. You name it: Lagavulin, Talisker, Oban, Caol Ila, etc. I completely stopped purchasing anything from Diageo - not just out of principle (though that's part of it) but because I don't like their wood. Dalwhinnie is one I never got around to trying though.

@SquidgyAsh, in total agreement with you about the Glenlivet Nadurra, a real disappointment. As well, every bottle of Macallan I've bought has really not been for me. 12 yo Fine Oak, 12 and 18 yo Sherry Oak... wouldn't buy any of them again personally.

Evan Williams Single Barrel 2001 Barrel #823. This may not count as I do not expect great things from Evan Williams and it was not that bad on the wallet. I just wanted to throw my two cents in. I also had a very disappointing bottle of Elija Craig 12 year about 8 years ago. I have not gone back to it. After reading a lot on this site and others, I think I may have gotten a bad bottle and will try it again soon.

I felt quite a bit of remorse when I had my first dram out of the Balvenie 15 SB I bought at the beginning of the year - it's comparatively really pricey here (over the price of a bottle of Lagavulin 16 or Uigeadail) and I found it basically just boring - might as well drink a Speysider at half the price. But it's started to open up now and I'm appreciating it a lot more.

@Onibubba lol... I love all the ones you listed, excepting the HW as I haven't tried it. Based on the others though, I'd probably love it. Lol

My two: Arran Amarone Cask and Bowmore Wine Cask. I'm not typically a fan of wine finished whiskies, ther than sherry finished ones and a few exceptions.

@CanadianNinja Glad that someone else agrees with me on Nadurra :D I'd heard so many good things that when my wife said I could go out and buy a cask strength whisky I went straight to Nadurra. Now I wish I'd gone to Abunadh instead.

Amusingly enough I enjoy the Macallan 12 yr Fine Oak at least when it's nice and fresh. Love all the fruit, but hate the over oak when it oxidizes. The 18 yr old I've yet to have a sample that I thought was good so total agreement in that one :D

Dalmore 15 and Highland Park 18. Both regrettable. Both bottles purchased in early 2013 from stores with a fairly brisk turnover.

I've tasted Dalmore Cigar Malt and liked it very much and HP 18 in the past and liked it very much. A newer batch of HP 18, which I currently own in the bottle I purchased, just plain sucks.

Neither of these bottles were not the result cork rot or soapy barrels. They were simply an inferior batch when compared with what I am accustomed from both distilleries. I wonder if they are sending their best bottles to Asia? Hmmmm.

As for the HP 18, I wish I had listened to Ralfy's review. He said that recent batches were uneven. His words were prophet, as he uttered them nine months ago on Youtube in a very entertaining and educational vid.

If I had listened to Ralfy, I could have saved myself $104. Also, I've noticed that Ralfy has not reviewed any bottles from Dalmore. I don't think that's a mere coincidence. His silence speaks volumes. I wish I had listened to that.

As Depeche Mode once sung, "Enjoy the Silence." Or . . . the the Dead Milkmen once sang, "You'll dance to anything like Depeche Commode."

Either way, both of these bottles belong in the Commode. Unfortunately, I flushed $197 down the toilet instead. Live -n- learn. My money didn't grow on the trees of inheritance or graft. I earned it through hard honest work that has helped the society in which I live.

Thank you for the discussion on which to vent, Onibubba. It's not wrong to "get negative" when the negativity is meant to help improve products and services. This discussion seems very much like that sort of thing to me.

@Onibubba: If you have a bottle of each, #28 and #29, you'll find #29 far superior to #28 a'bunadh in every detail - For me, #29 was the most exciting Malt Whiskey since #19; but that's just my opinion. It does need time in large glass to mellow and grow, say a month in a decanter with a large air space; again this is just my opinion.

Slainte!

@rigmorole Exactly! Negative experience is still experience, and it helps to share it (and to vent it). I think that my experince with Glenmo 18 was much like yours with Highland Park. It was an off-batch. Not horrible enough to be a complete drain pour, and I can always cook with it, but not what you expect in a distillary's 18YO expression. However, I suspect that I am as unlikely to ever buy this expression again as you are to buy another new bottle of HP18.

@lostboyscout mentioned the Balvenie 15 single barrel. I have had 2 bottles so far, and one was markedly superior to the other. The worst was the one bottled in 2012 (Hmmmm...). I can understand some variation in single barrel offerings, but not in something that should be as controlled (as possible) as a HP12 or 18.

Still, a bad bottle is enough to turn me off as a customer. There is TOO MUCH whisky out there to give everyone a second chance.

@cpstecroix was the wine finished Bowmore you advise against a 16YO 1992 Bordeaux finish? I have had my eye on that one at a local liquor store. The price has kept me at bay so far.

@Onibubba I was just able to try Glenmorangie 18 at a restaurant last night and I as well was pretty disappointed with it, and I really like the Glenmorangie line as a whole. It was ok, and I can get it for 20 dollars less at most places where I live and I still think that's too much money.

I have a bottle of Glenmorangie12 year sherry cask that is pretty good. I'm glad to know about the 18 year being lame. I've eyeballed it in stores. If I'm not mistaken, it's packaged quite handsomely, maybe even in a wood box. I can't remember. Anyhow, good to know.

We are consumers that have the right to "vote" with our wallets and we deserve the right to be honest and open in our tastes and feelings so long as we're not crude or merely derogatory. I found out how one can be slammed for raising honest and open questions in one of my discussions. The experience was quite boring and tedious (yawn). I've learned that this site has its limitations, but then again I have no idea who is a moderator, who is an industry insider, and who is a genuine connosr without ulterior motives. If I had known this, I would have been more outspoken and direct with individual members.

As for your discussion here, Onibubba, it's pushing the boundaries. Well done. It never ceases to amaze me how passive some members can be, even when they rate something in the 70's and lower. If I were to give a whisky a rating of 79, for example, (or even 81) my tasting notes would certainly not be as generous as some I've seen even lower than that, especially after loosing more than $70 for bottle of swill.

It's interesting to see how peer pressure (from anonymous industry insiders, I suspect, in some cases posing as mere connosrs) can shut regular consumers and lovers of whisky from saying what they honestly think about how a particular whisky tastes. I've never been very good at self-censoring. I think it partly comes from growing up in the countryside or Oregon where farmers' and vinters' children (my peers) were raised to expect straight talk and not sugar coated inferences. Even though my father held a fairly high governmental post (which actually caused me to be discriminated against to some degree by the locals) I still was influenced by their "salt of the earth" logic and behavior.

Your conversation here, Onibubba, is a much needed one for obvious reasons.

Mine were definitely the Macallan 15 year Fine Oak, Pappy van Winkle 23, and maybe the Balcones Single Malt. The ultimate sign that I didn't care for them: I poured the Balcones and I gave away the Macallan.

The Macallan 15 was just uninspired and limpid to me. There was never a time when I was in the mood for it or even thought, "Yeah, this'll do the trick."

Balcones really surprised me. I liked it more, and tried it after really enjoying a sample of the Baby Blue. In the end, though it was an ok drink, I couldn't get over the pervasive sour notes in it to actually enjoy it. Worst of it, I couldn't find anybody to take it off my hands!

The Pappy 23... I'd been sitting on a bottle for a while, but had the chance to get a 15 or a 23. I opted for the 23, having heard great things about it, and thinking that I'd feel better about opening a bottle with a spare for the long haul. It was completely over-oaked for my tastes. Now I use it mainly to let people try to see what a Pappy can be, and that age is not directly correlated with quality.

@rigmorole Ratings can be hard to go by. We use a 100 point scale here, but that means different things to different people. For me, 80-85 is good whisky. It is not great whisky. And at the prices I pay, I refuse to drink anything but great whisky. So does that make an 83 rated whisky "bad" if I do not want to buy it again? No. I can still see it's good points, but they simply do not measure up to drinks that made a more impressive impact.

75 - 79 is whisky that I have a serious problem with. Something is off. It falls just to the left of "good." Below that, I shudder to think.

When it comes down to, we are all just voicing opinions on something. And while they may differ, no one's opinion is more valid than anyone else's. I come to this site for information. The more I have at my disposal before I throw down 100.00 on a new bottle, the better.

@A'bunadhman Just checked my war chest. My second bottle was also a Batch 29. Missed whisky nirvana by that much!

I've got a batch 39 A'bun in my safe. I hope it's a good one. I tried to research batches before I purchased it. My choices were 39 or 41. Judging by a recent post, I think I made the right decision. Thank the gods for Whisky Connosr.

Anything Macallan except for 10 year old cask strength which is okay, but still too pricy for what it is. The 12 year old especially was limp and tasted of dead, poor casks. It would've been a decent 40$ bottle, but at more than double that price, never again.

Glen Breton 10 Rare and Glen Breton Ice 17 - $130 worth of bad quality whisky. I really tried to like them, but ended up giving them away or trying to blend them into something worthwhile (this ended poorly).

Laphroaig QC was also regrettable. Just not my style of peated whisky (too medicinal and too much filthy smoke).

Bowmore 12 was just terrible. Gave that away as well. It tasted like a cheap thin blend. My other vicarious experience with Bowmore 18 was quite negative (though I did not make that purchase).

D'oh! I meant batch 28 on both. A shame I was that close to a good batch. @A'bunadhman

Only truly regrettable purchase in my cabinet seems to be a popular choice in this thread: Auchentoshan Classic (see my review for details). I made the mistake of giving it another try a few nights ago -- just a teensy pour to start the evening, and it wound up ruining everything that came after. Neither sherry bomb nor peat monster could erase the taste of lighter fluid in my mouth.

Only other sub-par whisky in my cabinet is an old bottle of JW Red, but I'll forgive myself for that one. I bought it long before I knew a damn thing about whisky. Last time I used it was to pour it on my hand when my neighbor's dog bit me. I figure the bottle will finally be empty after about 50 more dog bites.

Singleton of Dufftown 12yo...wow smelt like laundry liquid, tasted like air refreshener, finished like soap water, i have not tasted a whisky as chemically forcefully put together. It was so bad I went and tried the Singleton of Dufftown 18yo at a whisky show,wow, its basically the same thing but stayed 6 more years in the barrel.

May be its just not my cup of tea.

The "Classic Malts" Gentle Collection was a big waste. I know it's called gentle, but come on. I can see why most of it goes into blends. Maybe there was a time when Dalwhinnie and Oban were really good, but I sure wasn't impressed. Both are great examples of how Diageo picks ridiculous prices for Ontario.

Glen Garioch Founders Reserve and Jura 10 were really bad. Both just taste like burnt grain.

I'd say 95% of my Canadian whiskey purchases were regrettable. Unless the industry changes or someone gives a new Canadian a million points/stars, I may never buy a Canadian again.