The 2014 WhiskyCritic Whisky Madness Final Four
The best four men’s college basketball teams convene this weekend to determine who will be moving on to playing in the title game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship. While the obvious WC favorite is Kentucky, in honor of the annual Big Dance, we decided to conduct a Final Four of our own, consisting of Macallan 12-Year-Old pitted against Balvenie 12-Year-Old and Macallan 18-Year-Old versus Balvenie 21-Year-Old.
On one side of the bracket, representing the East Bracket is the Macallan 12. The Mac 12 began life smooth with no back sass, giving us a rich honey, vanilla and even slight hints of licorice in the tasting. Our conclusion: the Mac 12 is no back seat driver, it prefers to take the wheel.
Its opponent, representing, appropriately enough, the South Bracket, is Balvenie 12. The Bal 12 is not as smooth down the gullet as the Mac 12 and possesses the kick of an itinerant donkey who has had enough kiddie rides. There are no candy or sweet notes for this liquid. Our conclusion: The Bal 12 is the kind of whisky you take for a walk and take home to Momma. It’s a long gravel road with no end in sight.
The Winner: Clearly, Macallan 12-Year-Old. Unless you live with your mother until you are 40, then you might like the Balvenie.
On the other side of the bracket is the Macallan 18-Year-Old in the Midwest Bracket. The Mac 18 was also a smooth operator like its 12-Year-Old brethren but brought spice and oak flavor notes and was a bit stronger and more personal. Our conclusion: With a slight kick in the end, the Mac 18 is your friend and it takes names, not numbers.
Finally, from the West Bracket comes the Balvenie 21-Year-Old. At first, the Bal 21 might be confused with its younger cousin, but the Bal 21 takes sporadic stabs at your palette and one second you might taste a spicy flavor and after a few more seconds you might detect a fruity genome – it is probably the most subjective whisky of the WC Final Four. Our conclusion: The Bal 21 starts off as a dry tumbleweed bouncing off disused children’s playground equipment but occasionally leaps high into the air with bursts of joy and verve.
The Winner: In a close battle, the Macallan 18 holds off the Balvenie 21 in overtime – just not enough spurts of joy from Balvenie to get it over the hump of consistency displayed by the Macallan.
The 2014 WC Whisky Madness Championship between the Macallan 12-Year-Old and Macallan 18-Year-Old, in an upset, goes to the overwhelming underdog, the Mac 12. The smooth vanilla usually takes the cake – or at least makes it.