Today’s whiskey review is the first 7 in the 7&7: Seagram’s 7 Crown American Blended Whiskey. A whiskey that many of us had in our drinking youth and college days. It’s a whiskey in name and technicality only because 3/4 of it is GNS (vodka) making it, essentially, a whiskey flavored vodka. And from the taste of it neat, not good whiskey either.
But can you blame them? When you’re making a cheap American blend that’s made for mixing with soda pop or fruit juice it’s the perfect dumping ground for the stuff that doesn’t make the cut for a Straight bottling. $10 is about as budget-friendly as it gets.
Though I can’t help wonder what its price would be if it wasn’t being shipped up to Canada for bottling and then shipped back to America for sale. $5? $3? The mind boggles at the potential true cost of this spirit.
Seagram’s 7 Crown American Blended Whiskey – Details and Tasting Notes
Whiskey Details
Region: Murica
Blender: 7 Crown Distilling
Blend: 75% Grain Neutral Spirit (Vodka), 25% Flavoring Whiskey
Cask: Apparently so
Age: Non stated, but e150a is cheap
ABV: 40%
Price: $10 ($15 for the large anniversary bottle)
Tasting Notes
EYE
Dirty copper
NOSE
Old car with a sunbaked dashboard, pencil eraser, “citrus”, old baseball cards in the basement, caramel syrup rubbing alcohol and a harsh metallic sting that cuts through the senses like death’s scythe.
PALATE
Chewing on a Solo cup, burnt nuts, pencil eraser, caramel syrups, vinyl, ash, plastic and an odd metallic citrus that’s akin to finding an old, flat, off-brand Sprite in the basement and saying “eh, why not” and then regretting your flippancy after the first sip.
FINISH
Short -> Chemically caramel, copper and lost time.
BALANCE, BODY and FEEL
Imagine trying to balance a greased bowling ball on a piece of fishing line strung between two ships in a storm, that’s the kind of herculean task it would take to call this balanced. Calling it thin and watery is an insult to water; waif-like, heroin-chic or meth-head-thin would be more appropriate. Feel? How can something so weak and flaccid carry so much sharpness… must be the low-grade vodka that makes up its bulk.
Seagram’s 7 Crown American Blended Whiskey Overall
Aroma was confusing at first and then it hit me… my old car – this smells like my High School car on a hot day, an 80’s Honda Civic, and after that connected the notes of baseball cards, pencil erasers and air-freshener citrus unfolded; Palate is more college-level with notes of biting a Solo cup to free your hands for beer-pong, ash, more pencil erasers and late nights that leave a metallic taste in the morning; Finish lives nowhere and is a quick fade of chemical caramel and nothingness.
This is not a refined whiskey, this is not a delicate whiskey, it’s barely even a whiskey, but as a whiskey flavored vodka used as a mixing vehicle to get you drunk, it does its job very well.
Seagram’s 7 Crown American Blended Whiskey – Final Thoughts and Score
Did I need to write this review to tell you this whiskey does not taste good? No, you likely already know that, and I’ll undoubtedly be called an elitist hipster douche-bag many times for daring to write about this shitskey. Which is fine, it just means I get to hit that “spam comment” button more than usual. But getting back to the whiskey…
This is the perfect example of the travesty that is the American Blended Whiskey category. Blends in other countries have age minimums and must be fully made of whiskey (grain whiskey + malt whiskey) to be a blend. Here, all you need to do is distill some low-quality vodka, dump in at least 20% (by volume) of NAS low-quality flavoring whiskey, and you can legally call it whiskey. It’s also why it doesn’t taste very good.
There’s a reason only hardcore alcoholics and broke college kids take raw slugs of this stuff. In no way is this a sipping whiskey. All it takes is the first second or two of sniffing or sipping on the Seagram’s 7 Crown American Blended Whiskey and you realize why Bukowski had such ferocious hangovers and sugary soda is its preferred companion. It’s brutal on the senses and I can’t help but wonder what the Beverage Institute was smoking the day it gave this 90 points.
SCORE: 0.5/5
Seagram's 7 Crown American Blended Whiskey Review $10
Overall
0.5- Nose (0.5)
- Palate (0.5)
- Finish (0.5)
- BBF (0.5)
User Review
0 (0 votes) Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)Summary
Sipped neat, it’s an unholy nightmare. Mixed, it’s a light alcoholic companion to whatever you’re adding it to. So in a way, it’s only as good what you intend to do with it.
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