Whisky review No. 15 - Islay Mist Deluxe Blended Scotch Whisky

Now here's an interesting thing. I'm doing a review of a blended scotch, which is unusual since I don't usually drink them. I'm trying to avoid being too much of a whisky snob, so I thought I was going to do a series on blended whiskies. It's not going to be a series after all. I'm just going to throw them into the mix as and when. I hope that's ok with you. If not, you'll just have to live with it. I decided to do this one now since the bottle's almost empty, and if I finish it off and get a review posted then I can take it to the recycling place and throw it into the container with a satisfying glass smashing sound. Recycling is cool. Hold onto your hats, it's going to be a rough ride!

Bit of an intro

Islay Mist Deluxe is a blended scotch whisky, not a single malt like all my other whisky reviews so far. At this point it's probably worth defining some terms. Blended whisky means it's a blend of malt whisky with grain whisky. These tend to be pretty cheap, and I'm pretty sure most of the whisky produced in Scotland goes into blended whiskies. Usually if you ask for scotch in a pub you'll get a blended whisky, unless you spot a single malt on the shelf and ask specifically. The big names like Famous Grouse and Johnny Walker Red Label are blended whiskies. Blended malt (which used to be called "vatted malt") is slightly different and means a blend of malt whiskies with other malt whiskies from different distilleries. I've only ever had one of those and it was pretty good. Very fruity as I recall. They're calling Islay Mist "scotch" because it is distilled, matured and blended in Scotland, and so fits the criteria to be legally allowed to be called scotch. You could blend scotch malt whisky with an Irish grain whisky for example, and then you couldn't call it scotch.

I bought this bottle in the airport on my way back from England a while ago. I knew I had at least five bottles of single malt in the cupboard waiting to be opened, so I didn't want to spend money on another one. The thing is it just felt so wrong to walk through the duty free shop and not buy a bottle of something. I decided to look at the blends since they're cheaper and the duty free shops often have blends you don't see all that often, and I spotted this lovely looking bottle. Most particularly I spotted the word Islay. I'm quite a fan of smokey, peaty goodness so the word Islay intrigued me to the point of purchase. It turns out this blend contains at least some whisky from the Laphroaig distillery. That sounds like a good place to start if you ask me. I have no idea what other whiskies are in it, but there is at least a drop or two of Laphroaig. The label also mentions Speyside malt being used, although it doesn't specify which one, or ones. (See the extra notes for my speculations). At this stage we can expect something smoky, but with some sweetness, maybe some fudge or toffee notes and dried fruits.

It's 40% ABV, which is pretty normal for blended whiskies. The manufacturers are generally looking to make as much profitable whisky as they can, so they water the whisky down to the legal minimum alcohol content. That way they have a greater volume of product to sell. Since blended whiskies don't command the high prices of single malts it makes business sense to maximize quantity. With single malts you'd be more looking to maximize quality, selling fewer bottles at a higher price. It is also chill filtered which we can tell by the lack of the words "un-chillfiltered", and we can also assume it has E150a caramel colouring added, since there is no indication that there isn't. I've said before that chill-filtering and adding caramel don't have to be mentioned on the label, but not doing them is a selling point and so the lack of them is usually mentioned. Not saying they haven't happened is as close to saying they have as a whisky label usually gets.

The label makes the claim that the bottle contains "aged malt and grain whiskies" but no age statement is given. All scotch whisky has to be aged for at least three years, so we know it's at least three years old, but beyond that is anyone's guess. Since Islay Mist produce some age statemented whiskies, the youngest of which is eight years old, at this point I'm going to assume it's younger than eight years. If it was all older they could give it an age statement. Of course its possible that it's a blend of some whisky that's only been aged three years and some that's as old as your grandma, in which case the age statement would have to be three years, but I don' think there'll be much old whisky in it for this price.

What else can I say? It cost me 299 Norwegian Kroners, which at the current rate is £20.87, $26.77, €24.58, or very nearly 628 Honduran Lempira. That's not a bad price for a litre of whisky. Oh yeh, it's a litre bottle, not your usual 70cl size. At the same price per ml a 70cl bottle would have been about 160 kr, which is a great price even for bad whisky. Can't think of any more details to give you now, other than that Islay Mist started in the 1920s to commemorate the Laird of Islay's 21st birthday or something. There are also a few other Islay Mist whiskies around. I've seen eight year old, a twelve year old, and seventeen year old expressions on the internet, as well as one called Islay Mist Peated Reserve. I don't know about anything them really, maybe I'll look into them one day. They're blended by McDuff International. Good name for a company.

Packaging

Not much to say here. It's in a bottle. The bottle itself seems light and the glass quite thin. That's quite good for the environment since less glass will be thrown away. I will of course be recycling the bottle when I'm done with it. I love to smash them in the bottle bank. Why send them to landfill when you can make a sound like that? No tube or box to protect the bottle, so not the safest situation. Fortunately I managed to get it home without throwing it on the ground. Feast your hungry little eyes on this:

Can't complain

The label looks ok. It shows a seaside scene, presumably from Islay. It's a nice way to make a fairly plain label a bit more interesting. The main feature of the label is obviously the name, so all they've done is make a nice background for it. Nothing too fancy here, just simple but tasteful. The bottle itself is just a bottle. It looks like a whisky bottle and contains whisky. What more could we ask for? Anything more fancy would push the price up. The screw top is standard for blends too, no fancy corks here. There is a nice design on the top of the lid though.

Kind of celtic.

The label on the back of the bottle isn't really worth a picture. It's just a white map of Scotland on a black background and a bit of blurb about where the different components of the blend come from. What the heck, have a picture.

I spoil you people sometimes

It's nice that they highlighted Islay in gold, but I suppose it is kind of the identity of the whisky. Nice of them to point out where the Laphroaig distillery is in case anyone is curious after drinking the whisky and fancies paying them a visit.

Appearance

By now I'm sure you know what whisky looks like. It's more or less amber, maybe a shade or two lighter, but we have to bear in mind that caramel colouring has been added and we're not looking at the natural colour of the spirits involved. It still looks pretty appetizing though.

A bit of fake tan never did anyone any harm.

I don't think they've actually used a lot of colouring as it looks more yellow than golden brown. I have no idea what it looked like before they added it of course, so don't give too much weight to what I'm saying here. Its not fully dark, golden toffee colour, it's still a believable whisky colour. It's not important though, what's important is whether or not I'll be able to taste bitter burnt sugar. I don't think I ever have so far.

Smell in the bottle

On opening (With a cold)

I had a cold when I was sniffing around the top of the bottle when I first opened it, so my sense of smell was a bit off.

No acetone, which I was expecting to smell because I so often do with cheap whisky.

Gentle warm smoke was the first thing I actually smelled. Very pleasant surprise.

Hint of sherry-like dried fruits.

Caramel

Not getting much else, but got a cold.

Later

A juicy quality at first.

Gentle smoke.

Still no acetone smell int he bottle, although it's almost empty at this point and I'm not getting it much in the glass either.

Possibly grape juice, sweet white grape juice to be more precise.

Touch of Something floral. Let's call it heather just because it's from Scotland. I have no idea if it actually is heather.

Wet wood. Like really saturated wood. Think a wooded jetty on a lake or something. Wood that's been very wet for a long time.

Neat

Nose

Acetone. I knew it'd be in there. It faded away a lot as the level in the bottle went down. Not sure if it was reacting with air and disappearing or what.

Gently peat smoke.

Salted meat, like a nice ham or gammon

Hint of medicinal tcp type thing, characteristic of Laphroig. (See extra notes)

Rich and interesting for a blend.

Fruity.

Brown sugar.

Maybe a bit of baked banana.

Hint of apple with smoke.

Just a hint of egg. Not sure if it's from the fermentation or from sulphur in the barrel. (See extra notes)

Dried fruits, I'm thinking prune.

Milk chocolate.

Honey I think, maybe a light blossom type honey

Dusty wood.

Maybe dried flowers.

Creamy barley smell if you hold some in your mouth and smell the glass at the same time.

Arrival

Mellow.

Can taste the grain whisky more than I can smell it.

Sweet.

Toffee Apple.

Cereal.

Hint of silage.

Smoky bitterness at the subjective point at which I would say it becomes development

Development

Nutty.

Dark chocolate.

Sweet, juicy raisins.

Faint hint of Christmassy pine and spices.

Hazelnut chocolate.

Bitter, woody, tanniny taste.

Creamy barley if you hold a fairly large mouthful for a few seconds.

Finish

Not long at all, but you wouldn't expect it with a blend.

Kind of bitter herbs.

Very dark chocolate, like 80% cocoa solids dark.

Faint kind of spicy. I'd suggest turmeric if you really pushed me on it.

Creamy barley.

Water - 1tsp

really no more than one teaspoon. This is only a 40% ABV whisky and you don't want to wash it away completely. Also adding water doesn't seem to change much with this whisky.

Nose

Earthier than neat.

Maybe damp sand.

Dried fruits a bit more prominent.

Sweetness a bit more prominent.

Medicinal notes a bit more prominent.

Maybe turmeric, but definitely some kind of spice.

Bit of an Islay style herbal nature.

Not really getting smoke now.

Bit like newspaper

Something sweet and a bit floral there with a bit of spice.

Spiciness becoming more definitely turmeric as the water acts. According to Ralfy of Ralfy.com and the ralfystuff youtube channel turmeric is quite characteristic of Laphroaig. Ralfy's a hero-genius, go and look at his stuff if you haven't already.

Brown sugar came in after a while. Demarera.

Arrival

Kind of sweet.

Maybe caramel.

Bit of dried fruit.

Nice and smooth, but not a great many flavours.

Bit of smoky bitterness, like the smoke is really faint but there's still a hint of it.

Development

Old chocolate

Sweet with a touch of bitter herbs.

Bit nutty, kind of like hazelnut shells.

Bit of vanilla in a white chocoltey kind of way.

Finish

Slightly bitter herbs.

Creamy barley.

Not particularly long or complex, but you wouldn't expect it with a blend.

A few extra comments

Since Laphroaig is the only whisky named in this blend I think it's worth comparing the flavours in it with the flavours found in Laphroaig. I didn't do this in a particularly interesting way, I just tasted the Islay Mist and considered how smoky and medicinal it was. I did notice both medicinal flavours and smoke, but the smoke was massively reduced when water was added. Turmeric is apparently characteristic of Laphroaig too, and I definitely noticed that especially with water.

I made a note on my last whisky review about sulphur being used to sterilize whisky casks and leaving an eggy or burnt match taste and/or smell in the whisky. In this blend I can smell a touch of egg, but since it's a blend I can't really tell where it's from. The label says that some Speyside malt whisky is used in the blend, and sherry cask maturation is relatively common in the Speyside region. It could be that the Speyside malt used in the blend was sherry matured in a barrel that had been sterilized with burning sulphur as is fairly common practice in the sherry industry. On the other hand, it could be that the blend itself has been matured in a sulphured cask, or that one or all of the components have a note of egg left from the fermentation process. Sulphur compounds are a byproduct of fermenting with some strains of yeast after all. The egg note is quite faint so in a single malt I'd say it was natural, but with a blend I can't tell.

Speyside whisky is apparently used in this blend. If I was going to guess I'd suggest Cragganmore because of the chocolatey notes. They haven't told us anything about it on the bottle though, so they could be using malt whisky from ten different Speyside distilleries for all I know.

Conclusion

Not bad. Not bad at all. Very pleasant smoky bitter-sweet nature. For this price it's definitely worth a look, and certainly interesting to try a blend that contains Laphroaig. If you do give it a go I'd suggest really taking some time over it. Water did open it up a little, but wasn't really necessary. I certainly wouldn't give it more than a teaspoon, but maybe you can experiment with more and see how it goes. Don't just do what you're told online by people like me, play around and think for yourself. I found water changed the nose, but reduced the flavour in all areas. On the standard one to ten scale I'd say it's not worth being a whisky snob because you miss out on interesting blends like this one. Would I buy it again? Sure, why not? It's cheap and tastes pretty good. Nice to know I can experience peat in a cost effective manner. In fact this is possibly the most cost effective whisky I've tasted to date. Teacher's used to be my go to blend, but I might have found a replacement. Happy 21st, your Lairdship.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you did please encourage others to do the same. Maybe you can get your whisky club round and each read my blog on your own phones as you share a dram of Islay Mist Deluxe. Then I'll get a whole host of views in one go. I get no money for this, but I derive a great deal of satisfaction form the view count. See you next time for another review so profoundly life changing that you'll be telling your grand children about it in years to come.