Scotch Whisky Review #410: Ballantine’s Finest Scotch Whisky (1950’s Bottling)

Distillery: Blend.

Region: Blend.

Age: NAS. 1950’s Bottling.

ABV: 43.0%

Price: Sample courtesy of /u/federalagents.

Color: 1.1, Burnished.

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Nose: Pretty straight forward. It’s malt and citrus scents, namely lemons and oranges.

Palate: Fairly sweet. Malt is the main note here followed by notes of lemon curd and orange juice.

Finish: Fairly short. A tinge of malt whisky comes through and that’s all.

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Conclusion: For as much Ballantine’s is sold in the world a year (apparently 7.7 million 9L cases in 2019, similar to Jameson’s), I’ve somehow never had any. It’s not for choosing to avoid it, I’ve just never had any real reason to order it at a bar or have it otherwise. So I went into this whisky without any idea what to expect or what it might even remotely taste like. While this is nothing special or fancy, if this dram is a representation of the profile Ballantine’s goes for, I can understand the appeal. It’s a really easy drinker with lovely citrus notes in the nose and palate. Not bad and I imagine it would’ve made a nice highball as well.

Final Score: 75.

Note: I’ve made some changes to the scoring legend, the descriptions have been updated slightly to match my actual scoring a little better.

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Scotch Whisky Review #410, Blended Review #16, Whisky Network Review #564

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Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky and I will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection if feasible.
• 85-89: Very good to amazing, almost the complete product and I’m likely wanting a bottle or two.
• 80-84: Quite good, pleasant overall though there is usually a few things that could be improved still.
• 75-79: Good, enjoyable to drink but ultimately flawed.
• 70-74: Alright, solid and wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.