Bailie Nicole Jarvie | Whisky Lady

Our January 2015 Mumbai’s whisky tasting club‘s session was hosted by our resident expert and the first whisky sampled was the Scottish blend Bailie Nicole Jarvie – better known as BNJ.

As per our usual approach, we first blind tasted the whisky and then revealed it to then resample and discuss further.

Bailie Nicole Jarvie (BNJ) NAS 40 %

Colour – Pale
Nose – Very light, honey, initially had more the scent of fruit than anything specific, then a hint of banana emerged, and vanilla. Post the initial tasting as it settled further to a delightful baked apple pie!
Palate – No palate complexity, had a sense of being watered down, slightly bitter and frankly a let down
Finish – Not much… if you were polite, you would call it delicate

Before revealing the whisky, we were challenged to identify what it reminded us of – it seemed most like a Glenmorangie – recalling the Nectar D’Or. The unveiling:

Scottish blend from Glenmorangie – bravo to our identifying prowess!
Our host shared it has been an ‘original’ blended malt long before vatted malt Monkey Shoulder came into picture, a ‘cult’ amongst Scottish whisky drinkers
Personally I love the packaging! A pity the whisky wasn’t more interesting…

We did let it breath further and revisited a few times during the course of the evening to see if anything new emerged. Other than the baked apple pie in the nose surfacing, it remained consistently light, pleasant and unremarkable.

Curious, I found out a little bit more information:

Blend of old scotch whisky from Lowland, Highland and Island whiskies – according to the bottle notes, all over 8 years
While boasts of having the “highest malt content of any blended Scotch Whisky” it seems that it is 60% single malt / 40% grain whisky
Blended by Glenmorangie and named after the Walter Scott novel – Rob Roy
Considered largely unknown outside of Scotland, was around in 1921 and quite popular in the early 20^th century
Was re-launched in 1994 in the current avatar shown here

Our final conclusion? It is a mild-mannered whisky that could prompt more conversation than the Glenmorangie 10 year but in that same category. In other words… pleasant but nothing spectacular.

Other whiskies in our January tasting session:

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