United Distillery Group (Egypt) The Auld Stag

The Auld Stag? Never knew there were deer in Egypt, but then they did build pyramids so I guess anything is possible…

On the label of this Egyptian blend – claimed to be the best blend available in Egypt, which isn’t saying much – is a picture of Bambi’s father with the caption ‘Smooth Blended Whisky, produced under license from William McLeod & Sons, Edinburgh, Scotland’. Pure marketing BS if you know that this product is indeed distilled, bottled, marketed and sold by the Al-Ahram Beverages Company since 2005.

The nose is – to put it politely – different. It starts out rather fruity and sweet but immediately turns into… err… bubblegum. Leave it a few minutes and it will turn into stale beer… like a lager (I was going to write Heineken, but that’s not beer, is it?) that has been standing in the sun for three hours, you know? Quite a bit of metal too. Tin can. No good.

The flavour is flat. Nothing at all happens. Is this whisky? I get some malt and wood – end of story. This is more a liqueur than whisky (and not a very good one at that).

Finish? What finish? What are you talking about, Sallah?

This is a pure Egyptian abomination, only to be served as a joke. At a recent festival in Belgium, where you could taste whiskies for a small fee, there was one booth where they served this one. However, if you had the guts to do it, you got paid a euro! Nuff said! I wouldn’t even give this away to my mother-in-law for cocktail sauce purposes (because I would probably end up eating that anyway). Perhaps I can do windows with it? Makes me go all Latin on ya...