Lower East Side Blended Malt
The Borders Distillery (sourced) | 40% ABV
Cocktails, smocktails.
I’m not really a cocktails guy.
If at first you don’t succeed…
The Scotch whisky industry is constantly trying to wedge itself into the cocktail world. Like a child with a square block trying to force it into the round hole, the whisky world tries to shove this concept of ‘great mixer’ with monotonous valour.
Having already explained I am not a cocktail person, you’re thinking ‘well, just ignore it then, it’s not meant for you’. I would, except that somehow, just as Jehovah Witnesses seem to be omnipresent in my outdoor life, the cocktail part of this industry keeps muscling in on my world of happy whisky drinking – and now I’m writing about it.
It's not that I won’t or don’t drink cocktails, indeed I have a favourite, it’s just that being a complete whisky snob I feel most brands are above the need to hammer home their suitability in one. I recall one ‘mixologist’ going into congener-driven ecstasy about a single cask Lagavulin only to proclaim ‘This would go amazing in my [insert name of cocktail]!’ I stared in dumb-founded disbelief.
But then I am a snob and my snobbery says:- “If the whisky is that good it can stand on its own two feet.” There has been, is and always will be enough mixing whisky in the world but when the product is good enough – and frankly anything above £25, $35, €30 – it should be, on its own merits, drinkable. In my opinion.
We have products for mixing don’t we? Who out there is drinking gin straight? Even the boutique £40+ stuff is mixed 50:50 with a mixer (well they are when I make them). Who out there is drinking Whyte & Mackay straight? (I know, some of you are not requiring the word ‘straight’ in that sentence).
Of course the argument must be, surely, if a spirit is made for mixing it must have something about it to positively add to the mix. Ergo a peated whisky will add something smoky; a Sherried whisky something rich; a fruity whisky, well, some fruit? What you would not expect for a gin, as an example, would be no evidence of any juniper and whichever other herbs and spices were used. So a whisky that will add nothing to a cocktail is no better than any cheap and relatively neutral spirit n’est pas?
So let’s see if this blended malt would make a positive impact - on its own or in a cocktail.
Review
Lower East Side, The Borders Distillery Company Limited, 40% ABV
£29.99 paid.
Nose
Quite floral at first – Irises (my wife’s favourites). A hint of that waft you get when you pass a Lush shop (or any hand-made soap, bath bomb outlet). In fact the more I get into this the more perfume and aftershave like it becomes. That sensation you get when walking through the brightly-lit lobby of a department store or the ubiquitous sales people trying to squirt something on your arm at the airport. Normally that dreaded word ‘soap’ would have my palate shaking, my tongue shrivelling, but there is just the slightest hint that we may get Refreshers or Fizzers on the palate (or Love Hearts if you remember them – British candy for our international readers).
Palate
Soft and not overly malty. It is ‘grainy’, but tempered by a distinct lack of vanilla or corn/wheat-sweetness that are the obvious grain whisky notes. This being a blended malt it is lacking a maltiness that would have any reader here want to buy it. The palate is incredibly nondescript - am I losing my palate perhaps? No, I think this has just been blended of an absolute core of mediocre, palate-numbing ingredients. It is of course screaming out for 46%, but more than that it just lacks a character. This is a black and white comic, and the protagonist’s super power is turning coloured things grey.
Definitely no floral notes, no perfume and sadly no Fizzers.
The Dregs
Other than the 40% ABV, I actually had some high hopes for this.
It is packaged well, from an interesting source and, whilst I detest the so obvious attempt to target one particular market, or even a niche within a niche (the cork reads “Made in Scotland – At home in a Manhattan” along with the brand name) I was ready to give this a go.
Frankly though, it is tedium personified. If this were a building it would have been in East Berlin during the Cold War. Had it been a car it would be the one with steel wheels and plastic caps with the kind of seats that make even a journey to the local supermarket uncomfortable. As an advertisement for Scotch, quite blatantly to the US and cocktail market, its blandness works only to allow the mixers to shine.
By all means use it in a Manhattan, just understand it’ll be like a concrete electricity sub station; serving a purpose while no-one knows it’s there. Lost in the shadows of all the sky-scrapers, this will be one of those bottles that will sit on my shelf for a very, very long time…
…unlike the very affordable subject of my next review, which is in the glass right now and screaming for an 8/10. Maybe even a 9/10.
Score: 3/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. FF