In early May of 2011, Master of Malt announced The Bloggers’ Blend. In a nutshell, Master of Malt picked ten bloggers and asked them to create their own blended whisky using various single malt and grain whisky samples that they would provide. Here is the list of bloggers that took part in this competition:
- CaskStrength.net
- Dr. Whisky
- Edinburgh Whisky Blog
- Guid Scotch Drink
- The Jewish Single Malt Whisky Society
- WhiskyCast
- Whisky Connosr
- Whisky Magazine
- WhiskyWhiskyWhisky Forum
- Whisky for Everyone
And here is what Master of Malt had to say about this competition back in May of 2011:
For a long while now, we at MoM towers have been thinking that one of the biggest and most valuable resources in the industry is the blogosphere… There are a huge number of incredible whisky blogs out there, run by experts with a huge depth of knowledge about the subject of whisky.
With this in mind, about a month ago we asked 10 of the most prominent whisky bloggers out there to assist us in the creation of our next whisky. We sent them all highly technical blending kits involving loads of cool scientific bits and bobs, and some superb whiskies, and asked each blogger to create their own blend using the ingredients provided, then send us their recipe. We then followed their recipes, made up their blends and put together the sample sets you now see below.
Now, we can only pick one of the recipes to use as our next whisky, and here’s where you come in… We want you to pick which of the 10 blends we bottle.
Once the winning blend was decided, they launched another contest and asked the bloggers to come up with a name for this whisky. They also launched a contest to come up with the label design. The winning name was St. Isidore, the patron saint of the internet. Seems fitting no?
About two weeks ago, Master of Malt sent me a sample of this whisky. Let’s get on with the review…
- Appearance: Clover honey color. Clings to the glass when you first give it a swirl. Thick, slow moving streaks eventually take shape.
- Aroma: Quite sweet on the nose. Burnt sugar and cinnamon. Cigar tobacco smokiness. Raisins and other dried fruit.
- Taste: A bit thin overall, with a slight bit of oiliness in the mouthfeel. Starts off slowly, i.e. it’s rather mild at first, but then it starts to intensify with a strong cinnamon like spiciness that hits the middle of my tongue. There’s a good bit of smokiness in the background, but it’s far from overwhelming. The finish is all cinnamon spiciness with a hint of that cigar tobacco smokiness and brown sugar.
- ABV: 41.4%
Thanks to Master of Malt, I am once again taught that a blended Scotch whisky can be just as good as any Single Malt. St. Isidore has all of the richness and complexity of a good Single Malt, and the fact that it was created by whiskey bloggers such as ourselves makes it that much more special. Congrats to Master of Malt and all of the bloggers that participated in this very unique competition.
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