Last Night's Tipple

One of the virtues of common Macallan bottlings like the 12 year old and the 10 year old Fine Oak (of which I had another pour last night) is that they are of high quality and they are ubiquitous. I will be first to say that the 10 year old Fine Oak is a bit one-dimensional and boring, but it is tasty and satisfying and can be purchased at just about any mediocre bar or liquor store: if you're looking for a tasty whisky but you're not someplace that caters to whisky nerds, you can look for Macallan and have a reasonable degree of assurance that where you are will have it.

I tried this again to provide a comparison to The Rich Spicy One. The Rich Spicy One aspires to be an aggressively-sherried whisky, and Macallan, whether with their regular bottlings or their Fine Oak line, is the most famous purveyor of aggressively-sherried whiskies. Well, it is true that the Macallan and The Rich Spicy One both have plenty of sherry in them, but they're not really much like one another. The Rich Spicy One is bigger, peatier, and Scotch-ier, if that makes sense. The Macallan is smoother and maltier and has more finesse. Which is better? I guess that that depends on what sort of mood the drinker is in.