As well as all the incredible old / rare whiskies we got our hands on at Whisky Live, we also took the opportunity to try out some of the whiskies that have had the most spent on their promotion recently. Monkey Shoulder is the new vatted malt from Glenfiddich (designed to be mixed, apparently) and Black Bottle is the blended whisky that has been getting all kinds of rave reviews (not least a great review from the whisky bible).

Our experience of these two highly-marketed whiskies was not spectacular. The Monkey Shoulder is designed to be a mixer, and as such we can’t fairly review it straight up. I think it’ll make a perfectly good mixer and a handy thing to have in the cupboard for this purpose (the same reason I currently have a bottle of standard Jack Daniels).

The Black Bottle on the other hand is marketed as being a great whisky in its own right. I didn’t actually like it that much (it is possible our palates were becoming a little fatigued by this point in the evening, though there is at least one counter-example to that coming up in the shape of the last whisky of the night). There was a smell that we haven’t yet been able to identify (drop us a line if you have any guesses) that spoilt this whisky for me. It was somewhat medicinal (though as Laphroaig consistently comes among my favourite whiskies, I don’t have a problem with medicinal whiskies) and just put a bit of a downer on the experience.