Ballantine’s Finest is a sophisticated, elegant and perfectly refined scotch blended whisky. Ballantines Finest whisky is the one of the oldest brands in product line of Ballantine Scottish blender of whisky. First appearance dates back in 1827, when George Ballantine opened up his grocery store in Edinburgh Scotland and started selling whisky.
After some time, George let his son take over while he set up an new branch store in Glasgow where he was selling his own brand whisky.
During his life he was main supplier of the British Royal Family. Today Whisky Ballantines Finest that you can drink today is based on a blending recipe from those times. Ballantines as a brand is quite popular in Europe and Asia.
As a confirmation of the quality, Ballantines Finest has won many awards. In the International Spirits Challenge: 2006 Gold; 2005 Silver; and in the International Wine and Spirit Competition: 2006 Silver; 2005 Bronze. Principally, serious connosieurs of scotch do not admire this blend much because they consider it rather uninteresting, boring, bland.
Ballantines whisky is currently on the second place of best selling blended scotch in the world – right behind Johnnie Walker, though its sales have been in slight decline of late. Ballantine’s finest is their base offering, and comes in at quite a reasonable price.
If we consider price range Ballantines Finest is a step above the likes of Whyte & Mackay, J&B or Jameson (depending on age), what makes Ballantine best economy blend.
Ballantines Finest review
Ballantine’s whisky blend is quite gentle and sweet and the addition of ice, in order to mellow out any roughness or burn that is quite usual with cheap class whiskies, is not necessary. But in case that you like a little ice, we recommend you a single ice cube.
Nose – Deep with hints of spice, cheap and malty
Palate – Ballantine’s Finest is very sweet and grainy, just a tiny amount of water and it will greatly help in reducing that grainy character and will add a nice malty note to the flavor profile.
Main reason of preventing this blend from being a decent one is due to a flavour profile that is far too grainy and sweet to the point of being like corn syrup and overall the taste profile, while interesting at first, soon it will became boring for someone seeking intriguing flavours.
For all whisky lovers who like a lot of peat notes in their scotch, Ballantines Finest will be great disappointment.
If you are new in whisky world this might be pleasing taste for you but soon as you taste other blends in this class like Chivas, White Horse, … you will realize how exhausting Ballantines Finest is.