When one thinks of Dewar’s one often thinks of the more popular and widespread White Label. Instead of this one which has a label that’s wait. The White Label is a budget scotch, that frankly fails to compete with the likes of Johnnie Walker Red or Famous Grouse, but what if you actually give every whiskey the time to do its work.
Which we just discovered by linking above that we haven’t actually reviewed Famous Grouse, a fact we’ll try to quickly remedy. This though is actually a damn fine blended 12-year scotch. The aftertaste alone is enough to sell you even though there are better options in terms of budget or quality.
What they Say: “Front: Aged in hand-selected reserves cases for twelve years this whisky has long been admired as the ancestor.
Back: Award-winning exceptionally smooth. Handcrafted from up to 40 of Scotland’s finest single malt and grain whiskey.”
Taste: 5.0 – Very light, just a bit of wood before we move along. There’s a hint of a sherry cask here too, but not as well melded.
Aftertaste: 7.5 – That is a nice, delicious whiskey. The wood, the smoke – for a blended 12 year well done. Even a bit of sherry casking pokes through but it actually is welcomed here.
Burn/Smooth: 6.0 – Overall this isn’t glass or silk smooth, but more like a skipping stone. The warmth is, of course, nice as well.
Aroma: 5.0 – No crimes, but no good deeds. What is there is bare, and even worse – average. (Okay it could have been like way way worse)
Honesty: 7.0 – It is pretty damn smooth, and for being 40 whiskeys, you do actually get a sense of that in the complexity but well-combined aftertaste here. Overall a nice bed of points, and nothing to seriously detract from that.
Mixability: 4.5
W/ Rocks: 4.5 – It brings everything together, and it’s not bad, but you lose too much of that nice aftertaste.
Value: 6.0 – Well that’s not too crazy for a blended scotch it loses big time to the king of budget blended scotches Grand Macnish. Given this being a few bucks more is offset by the nice aftertaste.
Google Shop Average: $29
Website: https://www.dewars.com/us/en/
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 5.5
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Metric Score: 41/70 |+| Metric Average: 5.86 |+| Reviewer Average: 5.5
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Final Thoughts: This was bought on sale, and while we don’t regret it – it’s unlikely we’ll be switching to Dewar’s any time soon. That being said this is a well worth it step up from the White Label. If anything though this just goes to show that while Chivas might be okay, the king remains on their budget throne. (Blended, of course, single malt is another matter).
