Té Bheag Nan Eilean

Té Bheag seems to fare quite well in some circles, and I was interested to try a bottle for myself when I saw it at the reasonable price of CAD $15 at a local supermarket. That was only two months ago, and I’m already down to the last third of the bottle. At this pace, I figured a review was in order now before it’s all gone. For info on the producers and the correct pronunciation of the name, I suggest you consult some of the earlier reviews. I’m more interested in jumping right in here…

Nose: Rich toffee, cereal, a slightly astringent graininess, apple cider, gentle grass, very light smoke.

Palate: A soft, well-paced arrival with a bit of everything. There’s an indistinctive sherried fruitiness and some soft peat, with some smooth coffee and milk chocolate.

Finish: Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut, toffee, apricot, cereal, grain, instant coffee, and earthy peat. Short-to-medium finish with some quiet complexity and intensity.

Well, it is and it isn’t a standard blend. It’s likeable, drinkable, and quite accessible. However the middle—of-the-road flavours in here come off a bit more distinctive and emboldened than they do in others. Also, while this has a particularly high malt content, the grain element here isn’t hidden, ironed-over, or ignored. Grain is an integral part of this whisky and it seems to wear that as a badge of honour. It’s used as a complimentary flavour here, not a hidden one, and that’s a refreshing approach that I wish other blends would embrace. Recommended.

This bottle is not a regular in my cabinet, but once every year and a half or so, I'll get a bottle on a whim and be reminded of how good it is.

This whisky is not chill filtered and probably doesn't use caramel either, altough there's no mention of it anywhere on the bottle. This is the new bottling with the boat the top of the label instead of the middle.

Nose: Fresh hay and straw, old leather, assorted roasted and sweet nuts, dry honey, yeast, seaweed and a touch of very civil peat at the end. Adding a drop of water seems to bring a fleeting cherry pie aroma and a general sweetness to round up the nose. I prefer this whisky's nose with a single drop of water. Subtle, but complex.

Palate: Round with a pleasant slightly underripe banana sweetness (the kind of sweetness you get when they are yellow but still have green at the ends). The grain is more apparent with subtle cereal notes which turn into more torrefied aromas of moka and spices the longer the whisky sits in the mouth. The peat and leather are absent on the palate. This is medium bodied and very, very, very approachable while not being boring. Feels younger and livelier than the nose.

Finish: Medium-short and not too muddled for a blended scotch. I get more underripe bananas and spices along with pepper, honey and more moka. A slight herbal bitterness develops several seconds after the last sip. Not unpleasant at all, in fact, it invites another sip !

This is a very good blend in my opinion, one that is often overlooked and one that is made expressly to be enjoyed neat. There's no age statement, probably because some young and old whisky grain and malts are blended, but the old whiskies they use are probably of a very decent age. Highly recommended.

A NOTE ON MY SCORING: 60-: Will try to turn it down for a beer or cocktail if offered for free. 61-70: Would not buy, decent enough, mixing material or apparent flaws. 71-80: Will buy a dram and enjoy, maybe not a bottle though. Minor flaws or boring. 81-90: Very enjoyable. A must try if not a must have. 91+: Would be a must have, but rarity/price is probably an obstacle to this. Reserved for excellent bottles.

"A Wee Dram" is apparently the English translation of the Gaelic name - colour is light-to-medium amber. Very grainy nose, with cereal, yeast, straw and citrus. Taste of malt and honey, with some lard, surprisingly, balancing off of the crispness of the grainy notes. A little water draws out some peat smoke. Long sweet (toffee) finish.

Te Bheag (Apparently pronounced: "chey vek") is a blended "gaelic whisky" - as the label asserts - which is very much a west coast highland blend. There is no age statement, but the label clearly states that this blended whisky has been thankfully not chill-filtered and is refreshingly straight forward. No mention of caramel though, so more research would be needed to determine this.

The Gaelic Whisky Company (www.gaelicwhisky.com) is the most old fashioned and fiercely independent of independent distilleries in that it is quite difficult to find its blends and maintains a rather unique character between all their bottles. Gaelic Whisky Co. does not own their own distillery, although they are said to be in construction of one around Skye, so this is a blend of a vast variety of different single malts that are not tied to one company.

For some particularly strange reason, this whisky sells the most in France and Canada (what?!) and I found it at my local LCBO for a bargain-bin price of 36$ CAD. That's in the same price range as Red Label, but many kilometres past it in quality.

Colour: Light amber, un-chillfiltered.

Nose: Light peat, very coastal and seaside, sherry, sweet, burnt coffee (?), the peat is gentle-natured unlike the usual Islay. Very highland.

Taste: Gentle peat, the grain taste is there but not as if it's hiding something bad or compensating, sea salts and brine, incredibly faint sherry, quite spicy, coffee. I began to notice the speyside-y honey and toffee after the glass was left to open up as I wrote the rest of this review.

Finish: Spicy and hot, very rye-like but lasts longer than a rye. The heat really is hard to ignore and almost numbs the mouth. (Is this a medical emergency?)

It is very much advised to let this dram sit with the tiniest pinch of water and the honey starts to come out.

To finish, this blended whisky is missing the usual punch of the grain whiskies that the large blended brands include and it is a refreshing change. I usually find that the grain whiskies are there to either cover up holes in the single malts or just pad the profit margins of the big blenders.

It's clear that Te Bheag is a blended whisky, but it feels like something more - and I think a lot of us "snobs" would certainly appreciate more creative bottles such as the ones Gaelic Whisky Co. puts out. I also appreciated the nice touch of printing when it was bottled right on the glass, that is certainly useful to know.

I'm going to to out on a limb and say that this is the best blended scotch for it's price.

I paid $32.00 Cdn for this I'm amazed at it's complexity and richness ... In fact, it's better than some of the single malts I've tried.

Highly recommended, especially at that price.

Té Bheag (pronounced “chey vek”) is a blended scotch whisky, the source materials drawn from unnamed West Coast and Speyside distilleries, blended and bottled by Pràban na Linne of the Isle of Skye. Some of this whisky is matured in sherry casks, which may account for its beautifully deep, golden colour. It is medium-bodied and unchilfiltered.

The nose on this blend is delightful, reminiscent at times of ice wine. Alongside the sherry, there are notes of honey-coated apples, spiced cider, sultana raisins, and ginger. Sherry comes through on the palate as well, but here a waft of gentle peat smoke moves to the fore, intermingled with tinder and toasted pecans. Though the finish is leisurely and a touch sweet, this is a bracing dram.

In short, Té Bheag is a wonderful whisky—the nose, especially, is a real winer—and is rather well-priced. For such an astonishingly good value, I am amazed I haven’t come across more discussion about it. I searched Connosr cabinets and found that only six members own a bottle, five of which are Canadians (the sixth owner hasn’t listed his whereabouts, and other owners may not have added the bottle to their cabinets). This whisky is distributed fairly widely, however, so I would recommend readers grab a bottle while they can. When a blend is this good, one's usual disdain only gets in the way.