Whisky : Trader Joes 10 Year Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Country/Region : Scotland/Highland

ABV : 40%

Cask : Oak

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ Home

Nose : Sweet honeycomb with the faint citrus of lemon rind and a heavy dose of ethanol. In fact, let me skip to the mental image and say that the aroma of this scotch reminds me of a warm summer evening with fresh sweet floral notes filling the air after baking in the warm sun all day. However, those pleasant floral notes are cut by pungent ethanol from the lighter fluid someone just split right next to me.

Palate: Sweet with the heat of raw ginger and lemon. Overtime it mellowed to more of a cider quality, a sort of sweet and sour apple juice.

Finish : Mellow sweetness, a bit of caramel and pleasant sour apple on the back of the tongue. The release was pretty quick followed by a low and perhaps a bit abrasive alcohol burn.

Score : 2

Mental Image : Sweet summer evening on the patio while a friend next to me removes nail polish.

Notes : In terms of value, it can be hard to beat some of the offerings that Alexander Murray & Co. import and bottle for stores like Costco and Trader Joes. This scotch is palatable, but not terribly enjoyable, even for a daily dram I think there are much better value propositions to be had. It was too sweet with too much unrefined ethanol for a scotch aged for 10 years. Definitely not something I will pick up again. I’ve typically found that while the Murray bottles for Costco/Kirkland are more expensive ($40-50 instead of <25), the value and quality they represent is easily worth twice the price.