Black Grouse

If you have had the pleasure of trying The Famous Grouse, you will know why it is considered the favorite blended scotch of the entire UK. Some Royal Air Force Chaps and some Brittish Aerospace folks were sequestered in the blockhouse on Complex 17 with me at Cape Canaveral back in the 1990's for a couple of Delta Rocket launches - it was their payload. We were on fire watch in the wee hours of the morning and the conversation turned to scotch. Imagine that! lol. Well they told me that The Famous Grouse was the #1 day-in-day-out-go-to blended scotch in the UK and that there were two reasons for that. 1. is that it tastes very good! and 2. is that it is reasonably priced so most folks can afford it. I have bought many bottles of it over the last 16 years or so and it is very good indeed. If memory serves it contains both the highly praised Highland Park and The Macallan in the blend. Most great single malt houses sell quite a bit of their product to blend houses in order to keep the cash flow going while they wait for their liquid gold to mature into its glorious state.

So I was wandering through the Walgreens Liquor store on Garden Street In Titusville Florida and saw a whole case of something called The Black Grouse marked way down low from about 33$ a bottle to 17.99$ a bottle so being of Scottish decent I can no refuse a bargain laddie. I bought it and tried a bit and while it touts its peatyness on the box I found the level of smokeyness quite acceptable. Remember I dont relish scotch that tastes like an ashtray of smoke but I do appreciate the hints of peat in some world class scotch. I had rememberd that other fine drinks such as Bushmills have a hierarchy where Bushmills is the bottom of their ladder and Black Bush is up a notch, followed by their single malts (which are wonderful). So I thought this might actually be better than The regular Famous Grouse. I cannot say it is better but it is very good. Its more like a different flavor than something better or worse. Like buying some vanilla and some chocolate ice cream not one better or worse than the other.

So if you see it, please do give it a go.

The Drunken Duck Canadian Draft will be ready to drink by Sunday, the first batch was a pretty good ale but with a dab of bitterness which I quickly ignored and drank it anyway, its 3/4 gone. The Drunken Duck Octoberfest goes in the bottles Saturday and will be ready in about 2 weeks.

Thats all for now have to start teaching my management class in a couple of minutes.

I sincerely wish you much enjoyment in your hobby of drink just take care, no driving, and don't over do it.

The Whisky Warrior