In whisky naming convention, you'll often find single malts named after the distillery that produced them (which itself is often named after the place its located at), while blends usually carry grandiose names, or simply the name of the founding blender! It's not often though that you find a whisky named after a disease or disability...but that's exactly what Monkey Shoulder is! See, back in the day when maltings were done by individual distilleries, it was an extraordinarily labour intensive process. Barley would cover the distillery's malting floor and workers would turn the barley by hand with shovels until it germinates and becomes the malted barley that we all know and love. The workers would be doing this task for hours each day, every day they found themselves working on the floor. Eventually this repetitive manual labour caused the workers to develop a condition where their arm would droop on one side and hang much like a monkey's arm, hence the name of this disability, Monkey Shoulder. The name Monkey Shoulder was chosen as a homage to those hard working labourers who put their blood, sweat and tears (and also physical health) into making the best whisky they could.
So that's the history of the name, but what is Monkey Shoulder exactly? Well, it's a no-age-statement blended malt that's owned by William Grant & Sons, the owners of Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie and was, until recently, produced by blending malt from those three distilleries together to produce a premium priced blend that could be used as a mixer, or sipped. These days, the portfolio of WG&S has expanded and it's my understanding that the modern blend now includes a portion of product from their Alisa Bay distillery too (Stripping it of it's speyside pedigree...).
Vitals:
ABV: 40%
Colour: Gold
Chill-filtered: Yes.
Nose: Opens with bright citrus and caramel candies, vaguely reminiscent of 'Werther's Originals', but after acclimatizing to this medley of sweet and sour notes, malted barley shines through with a hint of cocoa powder. The acidic note begins to rise again as the aroma of peeled apple skins makes an appearance. Quite a fruity nose, but sour.
Palate: There's a burst of apple granola sprinkled with cinnamon at first, with an unmistakable malt note in the background, but the malt brute forces its way to the front of the palate and refuses to go away. As the apples disappear into a malty black hole, white chocolate and honey appear in the background, along with some barrel spice at the tail end.
Finish: Medium length, though quite spicy with a fair bit of barrel influence punching through the malt and honey.
Conclusion:
Not bad, not bad at all. If I was to describe this whisky in two words, I'd call it a "malt bomb". Malted barley is the dominant note and it's not afraid to show you how completely it dominates it. It's not terribly complex, but it is pretty enjoyable to sip, even though it wasn't actually intended to be sipped.
Actually, now that I think about it, the malty character of Monkey Shoulder would make this practically ideal for introducing a beer drinker to the world of whisky, especially if they are a fan of ales or helles type lagers.
한국어 시음평:
향: 감귤류, 카라멜 캔디 → 맥아 보리, 코코아 가루 → 사과 껍질
맛: 사과, 그래놀라, 계피 → 맥아 보리, 화이트 초콜릿, 꿀, 우드 스파이스
끝맛: 오크, 맥아 보리. 피니시가 중간 길이고 매워요
결론: 유럽 맥주를 좋아한다면 이 위스키도 좋아할 거예요. "몰트 폭탄이예요".
Review by Glasgowhisky
2020/11/03
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