My Taste Notes for Ballantine's 17 Year Old

[Quaich1]

Here are my taste notes from my very first experience with this favored blend today. It's educational for me to see if others have the same "buds" as I do or at least if we are somewhat related as taste cousins.

Neat-

Nose: Aged stewed fruit, black forest cake (the real McCoy with rum), sherry trifle, creme caramel, butterscotch, a refined heavenly sweetness; a cumulus cloud in the aromatic sky with carmelized smoke and dripping with richness and Queen Bee honey.

Palate: Instantly warming, a fruity spice yielding to inherent sweetness, creamy, a stir of oak, baked apples exuding syrupy sweetness and a rush of "sticky lice" (what my buddy from Liverpool calls delectable licorice root-I've chewed a few in my time).

Finish: Lingering heavy fruit and dainty spice, not splashed about willy nilly but manicured on the after-taste, still creamy with oak riding the big surf all the way in.

Ballantine's 17 deserves all it's good press!
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"Always carry a large flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."
W.C. Fields (1880-1946)

[Mark]

I have a soft spot for the Ballantines 17, it really is a superb blended whisky. If you ever get the chance to taste the Ballnatines 30 year old it is superb.

[Big Mac]

I have had a bottle of the Ballantines 30 and it is outstanding, the 17 gets all the good press (which it deserves) probably due to Jim Murrays review of it but the 30 year old deserves praise also.

[Quaich1]

[albo]

I've tried the 17 and think it's very nice, but never the 30.

Still not sure about the cost of the 17, at standard price, you are looking at between £45 and £50, you can get a very good malt for that kind of money.

The Balblair 1997 and OP 17 that I picked up the other day are in that price bracket, as is the Ardbeg Ugi, the Tali 18 is only £10ish morem the Tali 57 north not much more and on and on.

Nice as the B17 is, I'm not sure it can keep company with the above IMO.

At an offer price (the one I tried Bifter picked up for £25) then yes it's bang on, but at full RRP, not for me.

[Crane]

I think it is only in recent times that the Ballantines 30 shot up to around £200, perhaps TWE have realised it is not moving off shelves at this price, hence the big price drop.

I picked up a few bottles of the Ballantines 17 when Sainsburys sold it off for £25, great whisky at that price but i dont think i would pay £45 for it given the choice of single malts at that price.

[bifter]

The B17 is a great blend, I've not unscrewed the second bottle I bought yet but I'll come back with some notes when I do. I understand Miltonduff and Glenburgie are among the malts in the mix and I reckon this is where a lot of the creamy smoothness comes from.

As for value, I think if you are a single malt fan (I include myself) you may prefer the idiosyncratic expression of a single malt for your money. Blends obviously aim for something different, a perfectly balanced synchronicity of flavours and aromas. The price of the B17 is at the high end but I don't believe it's unfair. If I want value BNJ or Teachers are my go-to blends.

I must mention the Chivas 21 Royal Salute, which I tried at the Whisky Fringe this year. It's usually around £95 but I thought it was stunning and well worth the money - and I didn't ever think I'd say that about a premium blend!
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"Whisky is liquid sunshine."
[George Bernard Shaw]