Battle of the (Budget) Blended Scotch Whiskies - Group A

[dan_the_tax_man]

About a month ago, I wrote about our group's decision to conduct a Battle of the (Budget) Blended Scotch Whiskies.  Things have moved forward since then.  In fact, we've had two sessions, the first of which, Group A, took place on May 31st, 2013, although we had to make some last minute change-ups to the fight card (and this will become a continuing trend...).

Instead of The Black Grouse, Jeff brought The Famous Grouse, as none of the LCBO outlets near his house or his office had The Black Grouse in stock.  This resulted in our determination that The Black Grouse was ill and had asked his older brother to show up for the fight (it also means that The Black Grouse has been moved to Group D).  Now, to make things even more mysterious, the matches were conducted as blind tastings.  One of our non-drinking participants took all the bottles and glasses into another room, decided which match we were going to do first, and then poured the whiskies.  The whiskies were differentiated by the use of yellow paper as coasters, so we had 'Yellow' and 'Not Yellow' for each match up, which made the fight card look like this:

• Match A - Yellow #1 vs. Not Yellow #1
• Match B - Yellow #2 vs. Not Yellow #2
• Match C - Winner Match A vs. Winner Match B (again, with the Yellow and Not Yellow designations, but we didn't know which was which, if that makes any sense)

Once the first match had been decided (Yellow or Not Yellow), the glasses were rinsed, taken away, and the process repeated for the next match.  At any given time we didn't actually know which of the four whiskies we were tasting, as the final winner wasn't revealed until the end of the evening...and now for the results!

• Match A - The Famous Grouse vs. Catto's Rare Old - while Catto's is neither 'rare', nor 'old', seeing as it costs around $36 for a 1.14L bottle, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  The Famous Grouse squeaked through on points, 3 - 2 (3 - 1 by tasters, with one non-drinking participant preferring Catto's nose to that of The Famous Grouse).

• Match B - Grant's Family Reserve vs. Ballantine's Finest - Grant's by a knock-out.  A unanimous, 5 - 0 (4 - 0), decision, and that was based on the nose alone.  The Ballantine's palate was even more brutally awful, and not every glass could be finished.  One participant commented that paint thinner would be a welcome replacement for the Ballantine's if we were to ever do this again...

• Match C - The Famous Grouse vs. Grant's Family Reserve - a decisive, 4 - 1 (3 -1), victory for The Famous Grouse, making it the Group A Champion!

What I found particularly interesting about this outcome is that I've had numerous drams of The Famous Grouse before, and I'd thought that I would remember what the nose was like, and would therefore be able to figure out which glass it was in...I was wrong.  Both times I thought I was drinking The Famous Grouse, I was actually drinking Grant's Family Reserve...mine was the lone dissenting voice in the final match...and I thought I was voting for The Famous Grouse...which ended up winning...does this mean that I prefer the Grant's Family Reserve?

And what did we learn?  Well, none of us went blind, at least, and we found out that Grant's Family Reserve and The Famous Grouse "...aren't that bad...", when you get right down to it.  We also had plenty of cheaper stuff to experiment with.  Jeff kept the bottle of Ballantine's (the person who'd brought it didn't want to take it home) and used it to make whisky sours, which is what I've been doing with the remainder of my bottle of Catto's Rare Old - two parts Catto's, two parts lime juice, 1 part simple syrup poured over three ice cubes and then mixed in the bottom of a Glencairn 'Canadian' and you have a pretty decent whisky sour...

PS - since I am 'going backward to go forward', I guess I should also make a promise to cover off some things that I said I would write about some time ago.  Which means over the following weeks / months, I need to post entries, in no particular order, on the following:

• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - The Book vs. The Movie;
• Screamers: The Hunting (Movie Review);
• Snow White and Huntsman (Movie Review);
• The Balvenie "Doublewood" 12 Year Old & War on Terror: The Boardgame;
• Laphroaig "Quarter-Cask" (Whisky Review);
• the Robert Burns Single Malt (and the Burns Dinner we had in January 2013);
• the Talisker mini-vertical we had in December 2012 (with a discussion of Battle Royale, as well);
• the 2nd Annual Saint Clynelish's Day Celebration (March 2013);
• Round One (Group A) of 'The Battle of the (Budget) Blended Scotch Whiskies'; and
• Innis & Gunn "Rum Cask" & Vanilla Rum Pulled Pork