Tasting Notes: Monkey Shoulder

Monkey Shoulder (Batch 27) (Scottish Blended Malt: 40% ABV)

Visual: Apricot amber.

Viscosity: Quite fast thick trails.

Nose: Vanilla. Pencil shavings and toffee. Smooth. Dried apricot. Banana.

Body: Very sweet. Vanilla cream and custard. Apricot. Toffee. Bourbon like notes. A peach front. Very syrupy, like overripe fruit – especially bananas.

Finish: Apricot and oak. Lightly liquorice. Bailies. Dried banana. Ice cream syrups.

Conclusion: Hmm. I’ve had this whisky a few times before and while I found it ok it always seemed too smooth for my tastes. A kind of smooth that didn’t let the flavour grip, rather than the kind that lets it roam if that makes sense.  So I revisited it here expecting a somewhat bland if relaxing whisky.

However I must admit I did find it a bit more open that my memories had suggested. More fruity for one, with dried banana flavour adding to the previously present apricot.  It still comes in a bit oversweet but the smoothness seemed less of a flaw with the new flavours within it.

It definitely aims for the easy drinking of blended whisky, but steps up with the less fiery nature that using all malt allows them.  Obviously this makes for an approachable whisky, and a nice entry point for people looking at the malt market. Despite this, for me, it still never quiet gets my attention as a top class whisky. It is ok, but attempting so much to be approachable that it comes across as a bit too sweet and sickly in a crowd pleasing way. Kinda like Pepsi in the taste tests, the sweetness makes it instantly interesting but doesn’t play as well when you have a full measure.

So still far better than I remember in complexity, and a nice bit of fun, but the additional elements still don’t make it a high rated whisky with me. I think it does its intended job as an introduction malt, but I’m too tied to my love of rough edges and oddities to quite dig it.

Background: Why did they decide blended malt was a good name for this kind of whisky? It creates far too much confusion with blended whisky.  For those wondering, blended whisky is a mix of whisky from different distilleries that may have grain whisky in it. blended malt (or vatted malt as I prefer despite the official naming convention to the contrary) is the mix of whisky from different distilleries but no grain whisky is used. Single malt, as we all know, is a mix of whisky from within a single distillery. Single cask is the whisky from a single cask from a single distillery. Easy. Blended malt seems to aim to smooth out some of the oddities of the individual malts but without introducing the oft disliked grain elements. Me, I’m a single malt man myself – the oddities are what make it for me, but I have tried enough good blended malts and even blended whiskies to know that you can’t write them off just because most of the mainstream entries suck.  Monkey Shoulder seems to have its eye towards cocktails on the promotional stakes, though my main memory of them is from my friend Mike setting up residence on their poker table at a whisky show and promptly whupping ass while I ferried whisky to him.  Pity it wasn’t for money really. A quick bit of web searching suggest that the malt for this is taken from the Kininvie, Balvenie and Glenfiddich distilleries, but I wouldn’t recommend using me as a primary source on that.