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Highwood White Owl Whisky (5cl Mini)

Worst. Whisky Experience. Ever.

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@YakLordReview by @YakLord

27th Oct 2012

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Highwood White Owl Whisky (5cl Mini)
  • Nose
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  • Taste
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  • Finish
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  • Balance
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  • Overall
    30

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White Owl is a Canadian wheat-based whisky (meaning at least three years old) that has been run through a charcoal filter to remove all colour. Obviously it was created for the upscale cocktail crowd for use in drinks that would normally use vodka. Several reviewers with good reputations have given this whisky extremely good reviews, including Davin de Kergommeaux, likley the world's leading expert on Canadian Whisky.

This 50ml sample came to me as a 'Value Added Promotion' attached to a bottle of Highwood Distillers Centennial 10 yr Rye Whisky (which has also received rave reviews) that I'd purchased. Unfortunately, the mini was a PET bottle, and from what I can gather, may have been kicking around for a while...which likely resulted in what has been, to date, my worst experience with whisky.

Normally I'd use the advanced scoring system, but I'd done that this time around, I would have ended up giving it 0 out of 100 because I wouldn't have been able to give it any points in any of the categories...

My notes are as follows:

Nose: Paint Thinner, Acetone, Nail Polish Remover...Davin and Chip Dystra talk about Sprite and other notes, but the only other thing I could pick up was faint traces of flat cream soda.

Palate: Flat Sprite with a bad bottled-mineral water aftertaste, the only thing I've ever tasted that was worse was cheap Shochu (a Japanese grain alcohol). Adding a few drops of water just made it taste more like water...

Finish: None, just an unpleasant burned plastic aftertaste.

The problem I have is that White Owl is supposedly quite a good whisky, yet the mini was really awful, which makes me hesitant to buy a full 75cl bottle, although since it seems to have been designed as a mixer, perhaps I'll give it a pass as I prefer to drink my whisky neat.

Nose:

Body:

Palate:

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5 comments

@Reyzar
Reyzar commented

That's terrible! Good thing you only have 5cl.

12 years ago 0

@YakLord
YakLord commented

@reyzar - it was bad. First whisky I've actively disliked and had to pour out (as you pointed out, good thing it was a 5cl mini!). Even my wife, who doesn't drink but does appreciate the nose on some whiskies, thought it smelled like nail polish remover.

12 years ago 0

@YakLord
YakLord commented

No longer my worst whisky experience. In fact, I had to raise the score on this by five points, simply because the Desert Queen Reserve was so much worse...will post a review at some point over the next week or so when I have time to sit down and pick it apart in detail...

11 years ago 0

@JasonHambrey
JasonHambrey commented

haha...did you end up posting for Desert Queen Reserve? I looked and couldn't find it...I would like to see that review.

I found this one much better than you, and I would place it above the bottom of the line whiskies, but not to far above (I just posted my review; I gave it a 78). Maybe my full bottle had a better preserved product, but I do understand the low scores and I wouldn't recommend it to a whisky connoisseur who wants to sip it, unless for interest's sake.

I also didn't get much in the way of citrus, but lots of butter and caramel. It's also more rye than wheat, I believe, though of course much is filtered out.

10 years ago 0

@YakLord
YakLord commented

I haven't posted it yet, @JasonHambrey, mostly because I haven't been able to steel myself sufficiently to do an actual sit-down tasting session with it...although @WhiskyScores (Twitter) had this to say about it after our International Whisky Day Event in March:

"Desert Queen 42% Aromas of old vegetables left in fridge on nose; dry with old barn floor notes on palate. Simply not to my taste. Score 50"

And I think he was being generous.

I think a large part of my problem was the PET miniature...the plastic affects the taste, just like it does with bottled water. But, as I noted in my review, with that as my one and only experience with White Owl, I'm hesitant to buy a full bottle.

10 years ago 0