Five Cheap Supermarket Blends

Five Cheap Supermarket Blends

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you have seen reviews of mostly good to excellent whiskies and cognacs, along with a few other spirits. Occasionally, some were not that great. However, we have rarely reviewed really inexpensive whiskies here. So, it’s time for me to take courage and review five cheap supermarket blends, listed in alphabetical order and all without an age statement: Ballantine’s, Clan Campbell, J&B, Label 5, and William Peel. Wish me luck, and have the Gaviscon ready.

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Laurichesse, Marancheville & Ragnaud Sabourin Grande Champagne Cognacs

Laurichesse, Marancheville & Ragnaud Sabourin Grande Champagne Cognacs

Today, we’re exploring three Grande Champagne cognacs: Laurichesse, Marancheville, and Ragnaud Sabourin. I must confess, my appreciation for cognac has been steadily growing. For a long time, I was so captivated by whisky that other spirits seemed dull in comparison, lacking the depth and complexity of flavours. However, over the past six to twelve months, I’ve delved deeper into cognac, learning to distinguish between the different crus and even recognizing them blind sometimes. I realise now that I was mistaken to overlook cognac before; it’s a remarkable spirit with a rich history that whisky can’t always match. Now, let’s see how these three cognacs measure up. I haven’t researched their ages beforehand, so we’ll taste them in order of increasing ABV.

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Braes of Glenlivet 25, 27 and 30-year-old

Braes of Glenlivet 25, 27 and 30-year-old

Today we do a small vertical with a trio of releases from the distillery now known as Braeval: the Braes of Glenlivet 25, 27 and 30-year-old. These releases are part of the previous Secret Speyside range from Pernod Ricard, and we’ll do vertical tastings from the other distilleries in this range in the coming weeks. But before we crack on with the tastings, let’s talk a bit about the history of this distillery.

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