Cutty Sark: Taste is Lacking, Price is a Winner

Cutty Sark Original Scots Whisky is a middle of the road blended whisky that can be sipped only by those who are used to neat whisky. Other uninitiated whisky drinkers will think they can strip their furniture with it. Please add Cola.

CUTTY SARK HISTORY - Cutty Sark was created on 20th March 1923 when wine and spirit merchants, Berry Brothers decided to launch a new whisky. Cutty Sark claims the blend is made up of ~ twenty single whiskeys, “predominantly from the Speyside region in Scotland, which are blended with high quality grain whiskies. The malts are blended together, as are the grains, before the complete blend is married for a further six months.”

I feel it is also important to note that these businessmen resided in London and were attempting to make a better blend of Scots whisky ... let's leave that to the Scots.

THE POUR - Cutty Sark pours a pale gold, straw color. This whisky is fainter than most whiskeys and this leads me to believe that there is a significant amount of unaged grain whiskeys in this blend. And what I mean by "unaged" is they "age" their whiskeys - be it grain or single malt - to the bare minimum requirement of 3 years. A darker color would mean more aging in a whiskey. Most alcohol comes out of distillation completely colorless so the expansion and contraction of whisky in and out of the oak barrels gives this whisky its color. Little color = little “ins and outs.”

THE NOSE - The light color led me to believe intense grain and the nose provided further clues to confirm my suspicion. Heavy, sweet grain notes were highly prevalent. The oak, vanilla, and honey notes found in older, better whiskeys were nowhere to be found. A little water just sweetened the nose, but did not uncover more mature notes.

THE TASTE - Neat, this whisky is not very smooth. Intensely warming? Yes; Smooth? No. With water, there is a sugary sweetness, grain alcohol, and a sour mash sense. There is nothing special about Cutty Sark. It is 40% ABV, it blends single malts (20 Single Malts?!), and probably adds a lot of grain alcohol to its married single malts. Not all that impressed.

THE AFTERTASTE - Cutty Sark does not last with you very long. The warming burn of the alcohol and the sourness of the mash quickly fade. Cutty Sark will cost you from $17-20 for a 750ml bottle. The only saving grace for this whisky is that it is so cheaply priced and it doesn’t really taste like rubbing alcohol.

There are some more expensive blended whiskeys out there that don’t taste any better so if you are looking for a whisky to mix in some Cola with skip the bigger named bourbons and blended whiskeys and head in the Cutty Sark direction.

3.75 STARS for a not-so-great taste but a big bang for your buck