In an era where marketing usually gives the consumer a preconception toward the marketed product, blind tastings are underutilized.

Just in case you’re not familiar with what a blind tasting is: it’s a tasting wherein what you’re drinking isn’t identified. At most, you can tell if it’s aged or not. One of the goals is to remove any bias. There’s usually a theme and a progression. You can get creative with themes. For example: if you can, do a line-up of NAS Arrans aged or finished in different ex-wine casks. I know they’ve released different expressions finished in ex-Port, Sherry, Madeira, Amarone and Sauternes casks. With this, the distillery DNA is consistent, so that’s one less variable to worry about. At the same time, you’re learning what flavors each type of ex-wine cask lends to Arran, and possibly to other single malts of the same style.

Progression usually goes from lightest (in flavor) and lowest in ABV to heaviest (in flavor) and highest in ABV. For Scotch, the peated ones go in the middle to last, depending on what’s in your line up.

If you’re wondering why I mentioned competitions: a lot of other competitions are “pay to win,” meaning certain brands pay to get their gold and double gold medals. A lot of the judges also, often, don’t have the right credentials.

Being cautious that asking this from a big brand wouldn’t give me a reliable answer, I once asked a brand ambassador who used to work for a medium-sized company. The answer I got was that blind tastings don’t work.

At this time, this medium-sized company was still well-liked. It’s a different story now with them showing a willingness to do anything to get their way. I get along well with this brand ambassador, but the company’s ethical issues made me doubt any answer coming from them.

As expected, the results were varied. But, more importantly, the different tasters all had similar comments after we went through the line-up. Each of them found certain expressions to be faulty when they went back to the other samples.

This topic came about because I was recently sent a blind sample of Macallan’s new The Harmony Collection Rich Cacao. It seems that after their Teletubby editions, they’re now starting with another series of shenanigans.

Macallan The Harmony Collection Rich Cacao – Review

Color: Honey.

On the nose: Light, watery, and a bit peppery. I get light aromas of honey, dried apricots, roasted coffee beans, honeydew melons, hay, orange-flavored gummy bears and chocolate barley.

In the mouth: Light but not as watery as on the nose. For something so light, I find the lingering but light ethanol sharpness to be a nuisance. I get light tastes of dried apricots, orange-flavored cough syrup, sulfur, honey, cereals and cantaloupes.

Conclusions:

The name “Rich Cacao” is very misleading. As mentioned above, I don’t sense any richness of cacao here. Mind you, my senses aren’t desensitized towards chocolate. I barely eat any in a month.

This is Macallan taking another piss aimed down our throats.