This blended malt from William Grant & Sons is the most available example of this uncommon style of whisky. It's rather a good one too, as it turns out...
Famous Grouse no longer produces a blended malt but Naked Grouse does. If you can get your hands on the 43% abv American version of Monkey Shoulder then by all means give it a go.
Nice review guys :) I agree it is a nice dram without being more or less than that. A few days ago I had this next to a cheap nondisclosed 12y blended malt (called Glen Silver). The interesting part is that the comparison brought out crazy amount of pear notes in the Monkey Shoulder.
Good review as always. I find Monkey Shoulder to be rather meh. It's inoffensive on arrival, thin in the middle and has no finish to speak of. It's rather like drinking whisky squash. It's reasonably priced for what it is but you can get a similar experience from a cheaper blend such as Teachers.
I'm no fan of Monkey Shoulder, but it's a BLENDED MALT, not a BLENDED SCOTCH like the more interesting, but peated & harsher Teacher's Highland Cream IMO. Where I live in NYC, Monkey Shoulder sells for about the same price as SINGLE MALTS like Deanston Virgin Oak, Tomatin Legacy/Dualchas, Auchentoshan American Oak, Bowmore Small Batch, and for a bit less, Loch Lomand Original and all of the Glen Moray Elgin Classics, and for a bit more Loch Lomand 12 and Glen Moray 12, and both Aerstone 10s; so it's not like there aren't alternatives. That being said, these days I'd rather have Gordon Graham's Black Bottle Blended Scotch for about $20 than most of the malts I listed above; it's far better made and more interesting to a Scotch drinker IMO. Cheers!
I believe the earlier batches of Monkey Shoulder contained Kininvie but not sure if they stopped using Kininvie (round the back of Balvenie IIRC) for some time. William Grant & Sons released some experimental Kininvie bottlings last year so they seem to be using it at least some of the time, so some of them might make be tipped into Monkey Shoulder again, or they might just be using it for testing distillation ideas. Kininvie can have a touch of pipe tobacco to it which is reminiscent of another Dufftown distillery: Dufftown itself.
I’m still very new to whiskey, but how you’re picking up fruit is beyond me right now 😅, i think i get where the honey comes from, but on the palette i’m getting mostly spice and even tobacco smoke. Is that something that will change over time? I would really love to pick up some fruity notes from that, i just don’t see how it’s possible right now 😅. Great review though. Any beginner tips would be appreciated.
As you continue to explore different whiskys then your palate will gradually develop. Reading tasting notes and then searching for that flavour helps too, even if it doesn't come through at first. Also, tasting whisky with a lot of water (so it's more like 20%abv rather than 40%) helps spread out the palate and make the individual notes easier to spot.
I've gone back to this four times since we entered the world of covid. I like it more each time. 28 quid just now in the spermarkets 23 quid fron mazon.
Glad you reviewed this one! I see a lot of love for it on Reddit, but the price and the negative reviews have typically turned me away. I have never seen it in a mini; I will definitely try it if I ever see it in small format.
Would love for you to review the Smokey Monkey. just opened a bottle and it simply smells & tastes off imo. I cannot drink it anymore and likely will throw it away. I drink daily Caol Ila 12, Laphroaig QC, Talilsker 10/Dark Storm, Lagavulin 16, and love all of those drams. the Smokey Monkey to me smells and tastes wrong. Can't quite put my finger on why it is this way. Hope you can shed some light on the mystery. Cheers & have a nice day :)
@@TheSingleMaltReview not as prevalent as the regular monkey shoulder but you can find it in the usual suspects online as well as some brick/mortar shops. cheers.
@@RebMordechaiReviews I would agree and it is the reason why I don't buy it. There is a term, damning with faint praise, of which you may not be aware.
@@TheSingleMaltReview I totally agree about it being better in the past, but it's still well priced for a 15 yo in the US; but I'm off of Diageo products (ugly politics, don't ask), so it's irrelevant to me. That being said, and back to the vid, I wanted to like Monkey Shoulder more than I actually did, and I find the dayglow orange really off-putting, so I'm really not a fan. Cheers! ✌️
Green around $70 NZ where I am, if I shop around. I never tried the older incarnation of the product but it's hard to go past the current green, in my opinion, for a very drinkable blend. I haven't tried the Monkey Shoulder, expected I'd probably be disappointed.
@@johnw218 Looking it up at my old go-to WhiskyAndMore.co.nz I see they've got it for $75, which isn't too bad when you consider what you'd pay for a single malt of that age. We should probably do the old green justice with a proper review sooner or later.
I enjoyed them about the same. I see the Tomatin is a bit cheaper, but I'd want to double check the current batch before I'd call it as good as the one we tasted way back then. Heavily batched NAS releases like those have a habit of dropping quality over the years.
What a great question. Are they similarly prices where you are? It's like asking how does a Red Blend wine stack up against a single grape red like Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon at the same price? They may cost the same but you will buy them for completely different reasons. The blend gives you more of a satisfying, well balanced harmonised experience and is great for casual relaxing drinking. The Single grape wine or in this case single malt, will give you the added benefit of an appreciation of its unique identity, it's particular character. So if you just want a casual, easy going (lazy?) whisky experience then go for the Monkey Shoulder. If however, you want a bit of a challenge, to be made aware of the different regions and cask maturation flavour influences, (as well as enjoying really tasty whisky), then go for the Tomatin Legacy, the Deanston Virgin Oak, the Glen Moray Classic, the Glen Moray Peated, the Glenmorangie Original 10, the Auchentoshan American Oak, The Bowmore No,1, Tomintoul 10, Glen Grant 10,.... all single malts in the same price range but all very different.
Thanks for the responses! They are indeed similarly priced where I am at. I am looking for something farely inexpensive smooth drinking whisky to serve to guests whom are new to whisky. I have mostly peated and smokey whiskies right now, which isn't for everyone obviously. Judging from your responses it would seem that I might just want to find out myself. Deanston virgin oak was also an option, but reviews and opinions seem to be mixed about that one. Though it might be a more 'interesting' option. Also similarly priced here.
@@Julian-wf6om A lot of people dump on the Deanston Virgin Oak. Some are Deanston fans who are upset that Deanston also supply a budget priced option for those who are newbies or are not willing to spend huge amounts of money on alcohol. Some are angry at Deanston for releasing a whisky without an age statement. Perhaps these are the type of guys who see a glass of water and say it's half empty when in fact it is two-thirds full! Deanston Virgin Oak is first and foremost, a delicious single malt. Both the Tomatin Legacy and Deanston Virgin Oak are a combination of heavily charred Virgin oak and Ex-Bourbon casks. However, Deanston uses a higher percentage of quality EX-Bourbon casks which gives it much more complexity and range of flavours than the rather two-dimensional Legacy. The Deanston Virgin Oak is the only expression in its price range (as far as I know) which gives you a genuine craft artisan integrity product by offering a single malt that is....... 1. Bottled at the higher strength 46.3% abv (feel free to add a few drops of water according to your taste), instead of the rivals, bottled at minimum legal 40% abv in order to cut corners and keep the price down. 2. It is not chill-filtered which means that you get a much fuller flavour, but be aware that if you add ice or cold water, then it might go slightly misty. In order to avoid this mistiness, most bottles at that price are chill-filtered to prevent this occurring although the consequence is a reduction of flavour and mouth feel by around 25%. 3. It is natural colour, that is, they have not added Caramel colouring to the whisky. If you are out to impress your guests, go for the Deanston.
@@RebMordechaiReviews Again thank you for the response! I think you might have sold me on the Virgin Oak! It was already the most interesting in my eyes but I thought it might put people off to whisky. We are trying to convert people after all ;). In case they don't like it I will have a nice unpeated, in my eyes particularly summery whisky to enjoy myself. Again thanks for the response!
You can definitely get it if you hunt it down, but it's unlikely to be lurking on a shelf when you go to the local bottle shop. Red, Black, and Double Black are all pretty ubiquitous, then there's a jump where Blue / Gold / Platinum are all about the same rarity (most shops seem to only one or two of them). Then Green I honestly can't remember seeing in any shop, at least not recently.
Famous Grouse no longer produces a blended malt but Naked Grouse does. If you can get your hands on the 43% abv American version of Monkey Shoulder then by all means give it a go.
Nice review guys :) I agree it is a nice dram without being more or less than that. A few days ago I had this next to a cheap nondisclosed 12y blended malt (called Glen Silver). The interesting part is that the comparison brought out crazy amount of pear notes in the Monkey Shoulder.
p.s. love the content guys. next to Horst you are the ones I search for whenever I need to get an opinion on a whisky. Great work.
Thanks for the support Kushi
I recently cracked a bottle of this and actually enjoy it. Similar to Glen Silver, but more fruit. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Good review as always. I find Monkey Shoulder to be rather meh. It's inoffensive on arrival, thin in the middle and has no finish to speak of. It's rather like drinking whisky squash. It's reasonably priced for what it is but you can get a similar experience from a cheaper blend such as Teachers.
Meh. I concur. For just a few dollars more I can be sipping on Glen Garioch 12 or Ledaig 10!
@@foodquig Agreed. Today I picked up bottle of Bunnahabhain 12, which is often on sale in a supermarket near me, for £30.
I'm no fan of Monkey Shoulder, but it's a BLENDED MALT, not a BLENDED SCOTCH like the more interesting, but peated & harsher Teacher's Highland Cream IMO.
Where I live in NYC, Monkey Shoulder sells for about the same price as SINGLE MALTS like Deanston Virgin Oak, Tomatin Legacy/Dualchas, Auchentoshan American Oak, Bowmore Small Batch, and for a bit less, Loch Lomand Original and all of the Glen Moray Elgin Classics, and for a bit more Loch Lomand 12 and Glen Moray 12, and both Aerstone 10s; so it's not like there aren't alternatives.
That being said, these days I'd rather have Gordon Graham's Black Bottle Blended Scotch for about $20 than most of the malts I listed above; it's far better made and more interesting to a Scotch drinker IMO. Cheers!
I believe the earlier batches of Monkey Shoulder contained Kininvie but not sure if they stopped using Kininvie (round the back of Balvenie IIRC) for some time. William Grant & Sons released some experimental Kininvie bottlings last year so they seem to be using it at least some of the time, so some of them might make be tipped into Monkey Shoulder again, or they might just be using it for testing distillation ideas. Kininvie can have a touch of pipe tobacco to it which is reminiscent of another Dufftown distillery: Dufftown itself.
4 parts Monkey Shoulder..... 1 part Chivas 12......pretty good budget dram.
Oh my God, there really is giants across the pond.
Oha, again a really big bottle. Thank you for sharing Gentlemen.
🤣🤣🤣REALLY BIG BOTTLE!!
I just did a Monkey Shoulder vs. Naked Grouse. I like the Monkey Shoulder. I love the Naked Grouse.
Its also very good for cocktails
I’m still very new to whiskey, but how you’re picking up fruit is beyond me right now 😅, i think i get where the honey comes from, but on the palette i’m getting mostly spice and even tobacco smoke. Is that something that will change over time? I would really love to pick up some fruity notes from that, i just don’t see how it’s possible right now 😅. Great review though. Any beginner tips would be appreciated.
As you continue to explore different whiskys then your palate will gradually develop. Reading tasting notes and then searching for that flavour helps too, even if it doesn't come through at first. Also, tasting whisky with a lot of water (so it's more like 20%abv rather than 40%) helps spread out the palate and make the individual notes easier to spot.
I've gone back to this four times since we entered the world of covid.
I like it more each time. 28 quid just now in the spermarkets 23 quid fron mazon.
Glad you reviewed this one! I see a lot of love for it on Reddit, but the price and the negative reviews have typically turned me away. I have never seen it in a mini; I will definitely try it if I ever see it in small format.
Everything about this is up front, could do with high ABV, nothing much lingering on the finish, ice kills it completely.
Thanks you
I like it :) did you try the smoky one yet?:)
Would love for you to review the Smokey Monkey. just opened a bottle and it simply smells & tastes off imo. I cannot drink it anymore and likely will throw it away. I drink daily Caol Ila 12, Laphroaig QC, Talilsker 10/Dark Storm, Lagavulin 16, and love all of those drams. the Smokey Monkey to me smells and tastes wrong. Can't quite put my finger on why it is this way. Hope you can shed some light on the mystery. Cheers & have a nice day :)
I never even knew they made a peated version of Monkey Shoulder. We'll definitely have to try and track that one down.
@@TheSingleMaltReview not as prevalent as the regular monkey shoulder but you can find it in the usual suspects online as well as some brick/mortar shops. cheers.
Just picked up dalwhinnie looking foward to this blended malt
Blended?
@@martinbeen highland*...lol just now saw that lmao
It isn't great but it is pleasant. It does no harm.
Does no harm? I'd beg to differ. All money spent on this lazy and boring Malt Blend is money that could have been spent on Single Malts.
@@RebMordechaiReviews I would agree and it is the reason why I don't buy it. There is a term, damning with faint praise, of which you may not be aware.
If it were only between 90 and 100 proof. It would be awesome!
Damn, bottles are small where you guys are from. And where are the cats?!
I'm in the US and I can't find the 50ml can you ship one to us if possible
I imagine Johnnie Walker Green Label 15 is available where you are?
Yes it is, but damned expensive these days! I do enjoy it though however I think it used to be much better in the past.
@@TheSingleMaltReview I totally agree about it being better in the past, but it's still well priced for a 15 yo in the US; but I'm off of Diageo products (ugly politics, don't ask), so it's irrelevant to me. That being said, and back to the vid, I wanted to like Monkey Shoulder more than I actually did, and I find the dayglow orange really off-putting, so I'm really not a fan. Cheers! ✌️
Green around $70 NZ where I am, if I shop around. I never tried the older incarnation of the product but it's hard to go past the current green, in my opinion, for a very drinkable blend. I haven't tried the Monkey Shoulder, expected I'd probably be disappointed.
@@johnw218 Looking it up at my old go-to WhiskyAndMore.co.nz I see they've got it for $75, which isn't too bad when you consider what you'd pay for a single malt of that age. We should probably do the old green justice with a proper review sooner or later.
@@TheSingleMaltReview I love JW Green, but on sale here i can get it for 27 Euro. But that is in Nederland.
How would you rank this against the tomatin legacy?
I enjoyed them about the same. I see the Tomatin is a bit cheaper, but I'd want to double check the current batch before I'd call it as good as the one we tasted way back then. Heavily batched NAS releases like those have a habit of dropping quality over the years.
What a great question. Are they similarly prices where you are? It's like asking how does a Red Blend wine stack up against a single grape red like Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon at the same price? They may cost the same but you will buy them for completely different reasons.
The blend gives you more of a satisfying, well balanced harmonised experience and is great for casual relaxing drinking. The Single grape wine or in this case single malt, will give you the added benefit of an appreciation of its unique identity, it's particular character. So if you just want a casual, easy going (lazy?) whisky experience then go for the Monkey Shoulder.
If however, you want a bit of a challenge, to be made aware of the different regions and cask maturation flavour influences, (as well as enjoying really tasty whisky), then go for the Tomatin Legacy, the Deanston Virgin Oak, the Glen Moray Classic, the Glen Moray Peated, the Glenmorangie Original 10, the Auchentoshan American Oak, The Bowmore No,1, Tomintoul 10, Glen Grant 10,.... all single malts in the same price range but all very different.
Thanks for the responses! They are indeed similarly priced where I am at. I am looking for something farely inexpensive smooth drinking whisky to serve to guests whom are new to whisky. I have mostly peated and smokey whiskies right now, which isn't for everyone obviously.
Judging from your responses it would seem that I might just want to find out myself. Deanston virgin oak was also an option, but reviews and opinions seem to be mixed about that one. Though it might be a more 'interesting' option. Also similarly priced here.
@@Julian-wf6om A lot of people dump on the Deanston Virgin Oak. Some are Deanston fans who are upset that Deanston also supply a budget priced option for those who are newbies or are not willing to spend huge amounts of money on alcohol. Some are angry at Deanston for releasing a whisky without an age statement. Perhaps these are the type of guys who see a glass of water and say it's half empty when in fact it is two-thirds full!
Deanston Virgin Oak is first and foremost, a delicious single malt. Both the Tomatin Legacy and Deanston Virgin Oak are a combination of heavily charred Virgin oak and Ex-Bourbon casks. However, Deanston uses a higher percentage of quality EX-Bourbon casks which gives it much more complexity and range of flavours than the rather two-dimensional Legacy.
The Deanston Virgin Oak is the only expression in its price range (as far as I know) which gives you a genuine craft artisan integrity product by offering a single malt that is.......
1. Bottled at the higher strength 46.3% abv (feel free to add a few drops of water according to your taste), instead of the rivals, bottled at minimum legal 40% abv in order to cut corners and keep the price down.
2. It is not chill-filtered which means that you get a much fuller flavour, but be aware that if you add ice or cold water, then it might go slightly misty. In order to avoid this mistiness, most bottles at that price are chill-filtered to prevent this occurring although the consequence is a reduction of flavour and mouth feel by around 25%.
3. It is natural colour, that is, they have not added Caramel colouring to the whisky.
If you are out to impress your guests, go for the Deanston.
@@RebMordechaiReviews Again thank you for the response! I think you might have sold me on the Virgin Oak! It was already the most interesting in my eyes but I thought it might put people off to whisky. We are trying to convert people after all ;). In case they don't like it I will have a nice unpeated, in my eyes particularly summery whisky to enjoy myself. Again thanks for the response!
You guys can’t get Johnnie walker green label?
We can, intermittently. But it isn't cheap.
You can definitely get it if you hunt it down, but it's unlikely to be lurking on a shelf when you go to the local bottle shop. Red, Black, and Double Black are all pretty ubiquitous, then there's a jump where Blue / Gold / Platinum are all about the same rarity (most shops seem to only one or two of them). Then Green I honestly can't remember seeing in any shop, at least not recently.
@@preachey Interesting. Where I am (Canada) I have never seen double black on a shelf, but green label is everywhere.
Many “um’s”
Die whisky heft meer ummmmm
tried to like it. heard it was good. found it was not. not a bad whisky but others I would spend same $ for that are better.