The Ensign Red Blended Canadian Whisky

Tasting notes:
The Ensign Red Fine Canadian Whisky nose opens with a succulent aroma like a spider web must smell to a fly. One of us–nerd alert!–noted that in Star Trek, it’s always the red-shirts and/or the ensigns who, when beamed down to a planet, are the ones to get killed, usually in a dramatic fashion. Despite a thus-understandable reaction to wanting to be immediately beamed up away from the Ensign Red Blended, I found that it had a polite, understated, collegial nose about it. Creamy, too. We got a mocha milkshake huffed with a recyclable paper straw, yet there was neither mocha, nor milk, nor a shake to be found in isolation. Truly, the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Mmmmm. Rich Corinthian leather.

The mouth screams, “Pumpernickel pecan pie!” which, we’ll all agree, is a pleasant-sounding, if highly unusual, thing for a mouth to scream. I got also Annie Oak-leaf, and a big continuation of the creaminess.

The finish is light and a bit bright, but mostly creamy and unmemorable. There’s a lingering regret that the mouth doesn’t hang around more to make a powerful assertion, but kinda like Justin Trudeau, there’s a welcome big splash at the beginning, followed by a retreat into a bunker mentality, with just a tinge of mango spice and soupçon of cinnamon.

   

Rating:
On the scale of Nobel Laureates (Peace Prize)–

The Ensign Red Fine Canadian Whisky is Lester B. Pearson, PM, not for his many outstanding accomplishments, but rather for this quote: The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like “mentally challenged minimalists”*–I’d like to imagine that he wrote that into his acceptance speech, had a smooth, creamy, and rich snort of the Red Ensign, stepped out onto the stage in Oslo, and let that zinger fly as the Swedish king’s monocle popped out.

   

   

                                                                      —Bill

   

   

*–Actually, the Nobel Peace laureate in this case (1957) actually said “retarded pygmies,” but our in-house Social Justice Warrior Censor forbade our using it. True that quote came from another time that was not so politically correct—but we are nothing if not politically correct, our redheaded stepchild site, maltgonewild.com, notwithstanding.