J.G. Thomson Sweet Blended Malt

Nose: Sweet, powdered sugar, baked apples, custard, candy. It vaguely brings Apple Sourz to mind. Palate: Very sweet, as the name implies. Apple, chocolate, candied orange, creamy rice pudding. Finish: A medium-long finish with sherry, spice, but predominantly sweet. Chocolate chilies, white pepper. There's an off-putting, slightly unfortunate artificial sweetness. This is a new retail offering from the fine people at the Scottish Malt Whisky Society. The JG Thomson brand is sold in shops, not just the usual SMWS locations, and is named after their building in Leith. My primary observation is its impressive complexity and intriguing layers. It's a skillful blend, and I anticipated more sweetness given the name, but regrettably, it's excessively artificial and cloying. After sampling it neat, I mixed it in a variation of a Rob Roy to assess its potential as a mixer. It performed better than neat, but the artificial note persisted, leading me to discard most of it. Clearly, this isn't for me.