Wisky review No. 17 - Bell's Original Blended Scotch

You might have noticed that I tried to publish this a couple of week ago but took it down. Somehow part of the text got a white background while other parts had become black on the usual dark background of the blog. I have no idea what happened, but the HTML was really messed up. I just spent an hour going though it and cutting out the bits that were changing the colour of the text and background. I can't say I've edited a lot of HTML, but there's no way it's supposed to be like the code I found there. It was absurd. Anyway, it's review time so let's go...

Bit of an intro

Well, it had to be done eventually so I thought I'd get it out of the way. Bell's is the best selling scotch whisky in the whole of the UK, exceeding even Famous Grouse which is the best selling globally as I understand it. You'll find it in a lot of British pubs and I've drunk it on several occasions when I've been in a bar and seen "Double up for £1" chalked up on a board somewhere. Twice as much whisky for a quid sounds like a good deal when you're young and skint. This blend is something of a joke among single malt drinkers. My favourite was a review I read that said "No need for water, this whisky will drown in its own tears." The other commonly available blends tend to get the same treatment, but Bell's gets the worst of it, at least among scotch drinkers I know. I have to say I've never been a fan, but I'm going to do my best to give it a generous review.

Arthur Bell started selling tea and whisky from a little shop in Perth in 1825. He started blending several different whiskies to create his own unique product and there's no harm in that, but apparently it was a bit unconventional at the time. His company became Arthur Bell and Sons when his sons joined the company around the turn of the century. Apparently the end of the American prohibition in 1933 created a huge boom in demand for scotch and Mr Bell ended up expanding his business by buying three distilleries, including Blair Athol. (I had a taste of an indie bottling of Blair Athol and decided that Douglas Laing really know what they're doing. Review coming up when I get round to it.) I'm taking all this from the Bell's website by the way. Apparently other events they felt worth including in their brief account of their history is the size of the cake at their 150th anniversary dinner. I wouldn't have thought a cake would be a particularly noteworthy thing in this day and age, but this one took four men to carry it into the room. I assume it was very large, but I suppose it could have been small but very dense. A cake singularity if you will.

There's a bit more information on the Wikipedia page. It seems Arthur Bell's two sons, Arthur and Robert ran the company together from 1900 when Arthur Bell senior died, with Arthur running things at home and Robert handling business in foreign parts. In 1921 Robert retired and Arthur junior ran the whole show until both brothers died in 1942. The company's accountant then took over running the company. His name was William Govan Farquharson, which is quite interesting as names go. They reckon he put more of an emphasis on marketing, leading to increased sales and by 1954 they were exporting to 130 countries. By 1970 they were the best selling scotch in Scotland, which is a massive achievement. Around the early 70s they took a different approach to marketing than most other scotch brands, pointing to its use with mixers rather than trying to get it to stand alone as a straight drink. They gained popularity with women as a result and a revenue increase of 800 percent over two years! Good move there, by the Bell's marketing people. In 1978 they became the UK's best selling whisky, and by 1980 had about a 35% of the market share. This commercial success gives me pause. I'm a single malt drinker, but for a brand of blended scotch to take such a large proportion of the whisky market tells me that they're doing something right. A note on that later.

Bell's, or rather the company Arthur Bell and Sons bought Gleneagles Hotels in 1984 and a year later Guinness bought the whole lot, so not just the whisky side of things but the hotels too, for $518,000,000. As I said before, for a company to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, they have to be doing something right, even if it's not making the best quality product on the market. Of course Diageo somehow came into possession of Guinness and Bell's has been assimilated along with it.

I found out after making my tasting notes that the blend contains mainly Blair Athol, with Dufftown, Inchgower, Glenkinchie and Coal Ila in the mix too. Apparently whisky from the Pittyvaich distillery was used between 1974 and 1993. There is of course a large percentage of grain whisky in it, what with it being a blended whisky. I have no idea where the grain whisky comes from, but I can tell you that I heard a suggestion from another reviewer that it was maybe 70% of the volume, with maybe about 30% being malt whisky. I couldn't verify that. Well, I say couldn't, but it's more that I haven't tried to verify it.  I heard a suggestion about the source of the grain whisky too, but I don't remember what it was. Some huge factory kind of place, if you're interested enough to wonder then you've probably already heard of it. Rumour has it most grain whisky used in blended scotch whiskies is made form wheat grains, which give a sweet slightly caramely, biscuity whisky. Could be true, could be false. I didn't question it.

Some eagle eyed readers might have noticed that this is not Bell's 8 year old whisky, it's now called Bell's Original. You might remember the adverts with Jools Holland where they made a point of saying that every drop was aged eight years. They're not saying that any more, and there are two possibly reasons I think. The first being that they've noticed a trend away from age statemented whiskies in recent years and are going with the fashion in order to stay relevant to a younger market. The second, (which I think is more likely) is that it's not aged 8 years any more. It could be anywhere between three and eight years old, but not eight yet, so they can't call it eight year old whisky. The reason they'd start putting a younger whisky out would be to put out a larger quantity while demand is relatively high, and who can blame them? It's possible that the recent trend in non age statement whiskies kind of gave them permission for this marketing tactic, but I'm speculating wildly at this point and verging on making things up so it's probably time move on.

The more important information is that it's bottled at 40% ABV, is almost certainly chill filtered and I'll give you a quid if it doesn't contain caramel colouring. For this 35cl bottle I paid 189.9 kr. For you international types that's the equivalent of £17.21, $22.17, €20.30 or 0.0024 ounces of platinum. Oh yes, the age isn't given, but a note on that in the extra comments.

Packaging

I won't beat around the bush here, I'm not a great fan of the packaging. To start with the bottle is the flat kind that seems designed to fit in the pocket of a street drinker's overcoat. Maybe that's harsh, but that's what I think of the flat kind of small bottles. At least it's not plastic like the bottle of cheap vodka I found in a cupboard in a house I used to live in. No one seemed to own it so I had it. It wasn't very good. That's besides the point, this is a whisky review. Have a look:

I'm trying to think of a caption, but it's increasingly difficult these days. I can't help thinking it's not a great background and generally a rather inferior picture too.

To me the general appearance of the thing, the label, the bottle, the lid, the whole ensemble, is that it's a bit 1980's. It puts me in mind of Halmet cigars. They're not proper cigars, but they're a step up from cigarettes. The packaging here to me suggests that it's a step up from whatever's a step below the cheapest blended whisky in the shop. Interesting that this was the cheapest whisky in the shop by a couple of quid. In the UK I remember there usually being at least one that was cheaper. Usually Teachers, which I prefer. I think it's the gold bits and that particular shade of maroon that make me think 1980's. Kind of snooker hall type of feel, like one small step up from the pub. For special occasions, but not as special as your birthday, or pancake day.

The information given on the label is a bit vague. One example of what I mean is the phrase "Matured in selected oak casks for a richer flavour". On a single malt you can generally expect statements about the casks to be things like "matured in olorosso sherry butts" or similar. "Selected casks" could mean anything. Well, it means that someone somewhere selected the casks, but the criteria is left ambiguous. Selected for their cost? Selected on the basis of being the only ones available? I assume it was on the basis od those casks giving a richer flavour, but that's a fairly ambiguous statement. It could mean a richer flavour of tired wood for all I know. I'm being pretty harsh, and if I'm being more fair I could say that what they really mean is that they've put at least some care into choosing casks to mature their whisky and so I should expect this to be at least a passable blended whisky. Information on the label of a blended whisky is always going to be a bit vague, simply because of the space available. You can't write all the information about every component of it, it just wouldn't fit.

There are some tings I do like about the packaging, most notably the picture of the founder of the company Arthur Bell himself. Here he is:

He looks like he'd make a good Grandad.

At the bottom of the picture you can see a bit of the gold and maroon combination that makes me think 80s. Something notably missing from the label here is the age statement. Bells used to have the number 8 on the label, indicating that it had been aged for 8 years minimum. It no longer has that, so we can't tell by reading the label how old the whisky is. We know it's at least three years old because if it wasn't they couldn't call it whisky. We can be pretty certain it's less that 8 years though, otherwise I'd be willing to bet they would have kept the age on there. I'm really not sure about it's age and since there are five different malts in here before we even get to the grain components, I'd be willing to bet it's different for each component. I'll elaborate in the extra comments, or possibly just repeat myself.

Let's move on.

Smell in the bottle

On opening
Whisky. A fairly general whisky smell and a genuine surprise. I was expecting rough alcohol and acetone, so I'm already pleasantly surprised.
A bit woody at first. Kind of old woody wood, like old furniture.

Sort of pondy, algae smell.
Sweet-ish.
Brown sugar.
Kind of dried herbs in a fairly general way. Dried mixed herbs maybe.
Bit of dried fruit, mostly raisin I think. Bit sherry-ish.
Pine with burning plastic. (See extra comments)
Something close to menthol, but not menthol. Not quite mint either, something somewhere between.
Apple, like baked cooking apple. Sweet but still a little tart.

Later
Oops, I drank it all!

Appearance
It looks about the same as any whisky. It's whisky coloured, but we can be pretty sure it comtains E150a caramel colouring, since the label doesn't say it doesn't contain it, and not containing it would be a positive in the single malt market. Generaly people buying blended whisky aren't too worried about a dab of extra colour, and to be honest I'm not sure I've ever noticed a difference in taste when it's present.

Looks like any other whisky 

You won't be seeing any scotch mist in this one, partly because I haven't added water yet, and partly because it's chill filtered. Let's get into the tasting proper, it was quite surprising.

Neat

Nose

First impression was stagnant pond and acetone, but that didn't last long.

Baked apple.

Pond smell coming back in. 

Plastic, not burning this time, but more like a cheap inflatable kids toy you buy at a beach shop on holiday in Wales.

Grain whisky. (I'd like to know a bit more about grain whisky. There's a certain taste and smell that all blends have that single malts don't and that's the grain whisky I was tasting here.)

Bit of sweetness (possibly from the grain whisky).

Something subtle and familiar that I couldn't quite place, but best guess was wallpaper paste. 

Hint of sweet apple juice.

Landing net. (Ever so slightly fishy with a good bit of pond weed and pond mud.)

Bit of an interesting mineral note coming in.  Rain in the peak district kind of smell, earthy peat and gritstone maybe.) 

Not smelling of much, maybe ten minutes in. Just a general sweetness now.

Vanilla coming up.

Something fruity but not pineapple. Not that far off it though.

Toffee, like Toffos if they still make those.

Softer dried fruit sweetness, quite raisiny, but not fully raisin. Sherry-ish.

Something that reminds me of my grandma's kitchen, epsecially the glasses they have from the 50s or 60s. Pretty sure it's orange squash.

Orange squash, definitely. (See extra comments).

I could possibly convince myself there was a hint of gooseberry, but I'm trying to be a bit generous with these tasting notes. I've been a bit harsh so far, and I do think the taste and smell are the important bits so i'm being as generous as I can.

Gravel, like when they have piles of it at a builder's merchant or building site.

Kind of stoney, or a bit cementy.

Arrival

Not a great deal.

Bit of a thin mouth feel.

Bit of grain whisky sweetness.

Development.

Slightly nutty

Touch of some kind of spice. Not sure what so I'll call it allspice for now.

Touch of sweetness.

Still a thin mouthfeel and not much going on.

Finish

Drying tannin, like tea. black English breakfast tea.

Bit of bitter-sweet dark chocolate.

Grain whisky sweetness.

Maybe nut shells. Nutty tannin.

Damp cardboard.

Faintest hint of Demerara sugar

Aftertaste like sugary cereal, but very faint. Bit like Frosties maybe.

Hint of burnt plastic.

Water - about half a teaspoon

Nose

Very faint brown sugar.

Very faint hint of nuttiness.

Kind of grainy sweetness maybe, still faint.

A bit of piney mentholy smell

Solventy in a paint brush cleaning way. Somewhere between red spirit that they have in Norway which is just ethanol with red dye, and white spirit that they have in England which is used as an alternative to turpentine and is actually a petroleum distillate.

Very faint pineapple.

Arrival

Slightly sweet

Orange squash

Development

Slightly peppery.

Drying tannin

Finish

Dry tannin feel, but with very little flavour at this point.

Little bit of chocolate when the water has had a good long time to act.

Maybe very faint tea flavour, but really very faint. I could be imagining it to go with the drying, tanniny mouthfeel.

Further experimentation

You can see from my tasting notes that Bell's blended whisky doesn't have a great deal of flavour, although i have to admit the nose was much more interesting than I was expecting. The thing is Bell's and indeed most blended whiskies are not really intended to be sipped and savoured like a single malt. As I mentioned earlier in my rambling, Bell's turned it's marketing towards being a drink for mixing and was very successful as a result. In light of that, I thought I'd give it a try in a variety of mixed formats like you might find in a pub.

Scotch on the rocks

Ok, not really a mixed drink, but it's the kind of thing you'd be served in a pub if you asked for whisky and said yes to ice. That's not a great surprise really now is it? I mean it's the kind of way blended whisky is often served in pubs and bars. Feat your eyes on this:

Sophisticated, without being too sophisticated.

On the nose I was getting the same smells as before, but with the nuttiness and graininess more pronounced, making it quite like sugary cereal. I got a touch of sweet smoke after a while, but very faint. The shape of the glass could have been a factor here, I've noticed i pick up the smell of smoke more easily in a wider glass.

The taste was sweetish at first and then quite bitter, with a noticeably bitter aftertaste. Not that great tasting, but quite a refreshing kind of bitterness. It wasn't quite the same alpha acid bitterness you get with grapefruit, or a bitter hopped ale, but it was a fairly fresh kind of bitterness and not too dissimilar. i could see it working with tonic water. The tea note come through more after a minute or two in the glass and was very tea like, making the drink a bit like sipping actual iced tea. There was also a caramel note in the finish.

I realized you can't really tell how big the glass is in the pic, so here's another one. I suppose you can kind of tell by the size of the bit of ice there, but we all like pictures. Incidentally, I thought I had ice cubes in the freezer, but it turned out I didn't. I had to go to a supermarket and buy a bag of ice, which I've always thought was a really silly thing to do. I've often speculated about what kind of weirdo goes to the supermarket and buys a bag or ice cubes, assuming it would be really freakish people or people who are having parties. It turns out it's also people who have planned an evening of drinking things with ice in but have no ice. Anyway, look at this.

There are better things to look at.

Overall I'd say it's refreshing to sip something nice and cold and a lot of the less pleasant notes like plastic and wet cardboard were masked by the low temperature and extra water from the melting ice. The extra smokiness was quite nice and I didn't feel like I was wasting good whisky. This could be nice on a warm summers afternoon. Not bad.

Whisky and coke

Apparently this is something people drink. Not really my kind of thing, but I'm told it's a way people drink blended scotch so I included it in my "research." I'll pop some pictures in so you can see how much whisky and coke I used. I went for a more whisky heavy ratio than you'd get in most pubs, or at least in the bar in the hotel I work at.

Whisky.

Whisky and coke.

 I used proper Coca-Cola, which to me tastes very sweet, with cola flavour (obviously) and maybe some complex herbs. With the whisky it tastes the same but with the whisky flavours added to it. It's bitter-sweet again, and not unpleasant. the cola flavour is the dominant one, although in my high whisky to coke ratio the whisky is really holding its own. I'm getting sweet cola first, then whisky-ish tastes. it's basically alcoholic coke with an interesting aftertaste. I'm quite liking my ratio, but in a pub or club you'd usually get a lot more coke. My version's about half and half, but at the hotel I work at we serve it at about a 1:4 ratio, with 40ml whisky and about 160ml coke.

As the ice melted I was getting a bit of a floral smell coming through, a bit like violets. The whisky flavour was getting a bit washed out as the ice melted, but it was still refreshing and the dilution was making it taste not of coke or whisky, but some other interesting thing. Coke on its own is sweet to the point of being sickly to me, but the dilution and the bitterness from the whisky made it much more interesting and complex.

A bit of nuttiness came through as the ice melted even more, with possibly a hint of chocolate. Reminded me a bit of eating milk chocolate while drinking coke as a kid. Still a bit sweet for my liking, but refreshing and interesting as a one off.

It's actually not that bad, and I think I can understand why people would drink it. The flavours actually work quite well together, and again the unpleasant notes in the whisky are masked by ice and coke. Definitely too sweet for my liking, and by the time I was halfway through it didn't taste alcoholic at all. To me that's slightly worrying, especially in light of the problems associated with young people and binge drinking. This would be much too easy to drink a lot of without realizing you're drinking a lot of alcohol. I suppose that's the point a lot of the time, but it's not a good idea to drink a lot in one go. Very bad for your health it turns you into rather poor company. Alcohol should be more challenging. Anyway, to sum up: whisky and coke is a drink I habitually mock and I will continue to do so, but I think I get it now.

Whisky and ginger-ale
This is another fairly traditional drink although I didn't realize it at the time it's very close to a cocktain called a Presbyterian. If i'd added a bit of water or soda it would have been exactly that. Anyway. I'll show you the ratio:

Whisky

I forgot to take a photo, so this was the best I could do.

The ginger ale was fairly cheap stuff. It's hard to find good ginger-ale here, it doesn't look like many people really drink it. To me it smelled of dried ground ginger  and sugar. it tasted almost like cheap-ish lemonade with a faint gingerbread background. Not very gingery, but very sugary. The stuff I used to make as a kid was much nicer and made me go all dizzy, which was fun. Hmmm...

With the whisky in it, it smells faintly of whisky, but nothing else. It tastes quite whisky-ish, but not very ginger-ale-ish. To be honest I'm a bit disappointed with the ginger-ale, so I might try this again next time I review a cheap blended whisky.

To start with it's not unpleasant and the coldness is refreshing, but it's a little bit bitter. It's not as sweet as the whisky and Coca-Cola, so the bitterness was a bit more noticeable. Once the ice had melted a bit it seemed to reduce the whisky flavours and the sweetness, and the ginger was more prominent. Still a bit on the sweet side for me. On the whole, if I want a sweet drink I drink one, and if I want a whisky I pour a whisky. I'm really not convinced by this weird halfway thing. I think the faint gingeriness hides the whisky too well. It's just like drinking rather substandard ginger-ale, and it goes down far too easily.

Overall I wasn't too keen on this one. Firstly the ginger-ale wasn't very good, with too much sweetness and not enough ginger. Secondly I'm not convinced the flavours went together particularly well, the coke worked better for me. I think a smokier, peated whisky would have worked a little better with ginger-ale than this one. I might try that one day, probably with a better ginger ale too. This was ok, especially when the ice melted a bit, but not great. 

The third problem with it is the same as with the coke, and I apologize if this comes across as a bit preachy: It's far too easy to drink and you could easily fail to realize that it was alcoholic. You could drink a lot of it very quickly without realizing how much you were drinking, and that's a concern. Alcohol abuse is no joke. It's different from alcoholism. Alcoholism is an addiction, alcohol abuse is the misuse of alcohol. Getting drunk in other words. While alcohol abuse isn't an addiction it's still a problem and potentially a very big one. I'm sure you had a friend or two when you were younger who would tend to drink a bit too much and end up annoying people. That's an example of the beginnings of it, but it can be worse. I was assaulted by a hotel guest who had an alcohol abuse problem. He went out sober and came back two hours later completely steaming drunk, made a nuisance of himself for a while and then hit me in the face. In his experience, he went out for a few drinks and woke up in a jail cell twenty two miles away with no idea why. I admit I found that quite funny, especially when I found out that if you get a night in a jail cell in Norway you have to pay the full cost of it yourself. He then had to arrive a work late and explain to his boss where he'd been. (Yes, he was staying in the hotel on business and his boss was also there). This man was probably not an alcoholic, but his alcohol abuse was causing him problems. He could easily have lost his job. The only thing funny about it was that the person who'd assaulted me was getting what he deserved, but in reality he's a man with a potentially life destroying problem, and that's not funny at all. I did find him some information about alcohol abuse on the internet which I printed out for him, and gave him the number for the local alcohol support people. Please be careful how much you're drinking, and maybe take a minute to get familiar with the signs of alcohol abuse and addiction by clicking this link. It's about smells and flavours, not about getting smashed. And always remember thirst is best quenched with water. Not alcohol, not coffee, not sugary fizz. Those are for tasting.

That all got a bit heavy, so I think it's time for the next one.

Whisky and tonic
Like a gin and tonic but with whisky.That's pretty self explanatory. I was a little skeptical about this one. I'm not sure why. I've heard King Ralfy recommend it more than once and I assumed it was coming from his eccentricity rather than his whisky prowess. How wrong I was. Again I was going with about half and half, have a look...

Whisky.

W&T

Having looked at these pictures again I see it was half whisky and ice and half tonic, so I suppose 1 part whisky to 2 parts tonic, with ice. Anyway, the tonic smells a little bitter, a little sour, and quite lemony. The bitterness is quite fresh and comes from quinine. Very exciting. Weirdly it works well with other slightly bitter things like juniper, which is the main flavour in gin. This whisky has a bit of a bitter note, and the two work very well together.

Tonic water somehow has a way of bringing out the flavours in the spirit you mix it with, rather than the quinine overpowering everything as you'd expect. With the W&T I got a sweet arrival becoming bitter, with a fair bit of chocolatey character. It smelled faintly smoky and slightly herbal too. A little later I was getting notes of grapefruit and lemon peel, caramel like sweetness with chocolate flavours. 

I was very surprised by how good this was and the range of flavours that were still available in the drink. It's much more a sipping drink than the whisky and coke or the whisky and ginger-ale. Much more of an interesting taste experience and one to be taken a bit more slowly. I approve. The way it behaves is not simply whisky mixed with tonic, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts and the W&T ends up being something entirely different from either component on its own. There is some chemistry going on when we mix whisky and tonic, aside from the usual whisky and water business. Most spirits are very slightly acidic, and quinine is alkaline. The alkali will neutralize the acid, removing the sour component it brings to the flavour. To me whisky isn't usually noticeably sour, but the removal of the acidity is enough that you notice a difference. What's left is of course mixed with whats left of the quinine and the sugar and whatever other flavourings go into the tonic water. Anyway, W&T was very pleasant and I'd actually consider buying a small bottle of Bell's again just for that. I'll be keeping an eye out for miniatures on offer at the airport next month when I head over to Blighty to visit my old friend Mr. Tiffen

   

A few extra comments

The success of Bell's is in my opinion more to do with the quality of the marketing department than the quality of the whisky. It's not that great as a straight drink in all honesty, but it's sweetness means it works well with mixers. It's not too complex and doesn't make a very challenging drink when mixed with coke, ginger ale or tonic. Easy drinking, relatively cheap, and intoxicating are all features that are going to count for you in the wider drinks market. The clever move to market this as a whisky for mixing was in my opinion a fairly humble one too, admitting to themselves that this isn't the worlds most complex and interesting spirit.

I've been mentioning the lack of age statement throughout my rambling, so it's time to go into a bit more detail. As I'm sure we all know by now, the age statement on the bottle has to show the age of the youngest whisky in the mix. It used to be 8 years, but now that that's been removed we know that the youngest whisky in this blend will be less that 8 years. Apparently the popularity of whisky is increasing, and if you google a whisky for a review you'll see a couple more blogs like this one popping up every day. Youtube has more and more whisky review channels too. (Check out ralfystuff if you haven't already.) I'm speculating a bit here, but it makes sense that increased popularity in single malts would go hand in hand with an increase in popularity in whisky in general. The mature whisky gets used up and they have to open younger barrels to meet demand. Fairly logical if you ask me. Having said that, this whisky has five different malt whiskies before we even get onto the grain whisky that's used. For all we know they could all still be over 8 years, with just one component being younger, so that it's no longer given the 8 year label it doesn't necessarily mean that the quality will be significantly reduced. There is a general trend towards names instead of age statements going on at the moment, which is a bit of a concern with single malts. However, I wouldn't be too concerned with a lack of age statement on a cheap blend.

I noticed a bit of a burnt plastic smell in this whisky and found it a bit off putting, but still interesting. Bunnahabhain tends to have a distinct burnt rubber note and that's fine for me, so why not burnt plastic? Comment if you have any ideas about that.

I was very happy to find that I'd identified flavours associated with the malt whiskies involved before knowing what they were. I feel like a full on whisky buff now. Here are the malts and their characteristics taken from the Bell's website, along with the thing I tasted and smelled that I've convinced myself are the malts:

• Blair Athol - spicy gingercake and almonds - I tasted nutty notes and some spiciness.
• Coal Ila - smoke and embers - I got a touch of sweet smoke in my scotch on the rocks
• Glenkinchie - smoothe malt, late summer fruits, toffee - I got all of those, but I assumed the fruitiness was sherry influence
• Dufftown - apple, flowers, honey - I got apple, and a hint of something floral with the coke. I might have taken any honey sweetness to be grain whisky, because I didn't note anything down as honey.
• Inch Gower - nuts, rich coastal, salty sea - I did get nutty notes, but not really the coastal, salty sea. Ah well, never mind.

Conclusion
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. I was ready for the worst, roughest, grottiest whisky ever, or possibly nail polish remover with caramel colouring, but this was actually passable as a cheap blended whisky, which is exactly what it is. I found a lot more going on on the nose than I expected, although the taste was..... lacking. You probably noticed how short the arrival and development sections were in the tasting notes. The finish had a bit more going on and lasted a little longer than I expected, but most of that was woody dryness (which made me think old used up casks, but I'm not certain about that) and had a couple of slightly dubious flavour references like cardboard and plastic. Not really any need for water, and if you do use it just a few drops will do the job.

Mixing it with other things generally seemed to work, which is why it's been marketed as a mixer since the seventies. I'd advise caution if you're mixing it though as it goes down very easily with coke or ginger-ale. It's worth keeping track of how much we're drinking.

The malt components of the blend each bring something to the party, but I'd like to see them increased a bit and the grain whisky decreased. It was very satisfying to discover that I'd tasted hints of the malts on my own too, so I feel I have to add a couple of marks for that. When I tally it all up on the standard one to ten scale I have to admit that Bell's doesn't quite deserve the reputation it has among many single malt drinkers. Would I buy it again? Not in a hurry, but possibly in summer for a nice W&T, since it's about the cheapest whisky in my country of residence. I might add a slice of lime next time though and maybe try a better quality tonic water. One thing's for sure, I can see myself defending Bell's from whisky snobs at some point in the future. Anyone who can only taste crapness needs to develop their nose and palate a bit. It's not great, but it's not supposed to be, and I'd be genuinely grateful if someone bought me a bottle, or even a dram. This has all been a valuable lesson.

Not sure what's coming up next, but it might be a kind of semi-review of an indie Blair Athol I tried, since that's a main component in Bell's. It might not be of course. You never can tell with these things. Until next time make sure you tell all your friends to read this interesting and informative blog. Maybe you can read it together over some nice cheese and biscuits.