Proper 12
Proper 12 was spat out into the whiskey market last year, but until now, I’ve not had the interest to even bother to find a bottle. It was on a list, somewhere, on the back of a dirty napkin that was stuffed into the pocket of a pair of gardening jeans. It was kept company with a list of 5 names of people I’d enjoy watching burn on a bonfire, and the remnants of 3 winter sneezes and a nose excavation on my way to a wine tasting.
But, with rumours flying that I review whisky as a side gig, I finally got bored of all the Whatsapp messages asking me what my review on Proper 12 was. So, I fasted for a day to save up enough money (I wasn’t even sure how much is a bottle of Proper 12!) to justify buying this as “the days calorific intake” as I had no expectations of it being any more enjoyment than that – just boring, tasteless calories. The slimy tofu of whiskey.
Clearly this was (much like the fighter himself) going to be a lot of noise and very little delivered. Perhaps it’s the fact I find Mr McG an annoying little twerp that created at least some of the bias I had towards trying this whisky. I find him a lot like those annoying little nippy dogs. Great things to keep your granny company, but apart from that, the mostly just need a good boot. The noise of them yelping at a good, hard, toe poke is a lot more appealing to me than having one as a pet. Let’s hope he doesn’t have the misfortune to come down the streets that I loiter in. He’d need a lot more than a suitcase trolley and a dozen man, arse kissing entourage to make him look impressive.
But enough of my bitching. Let’s get onto the whiskey and try to be open minded about it. I actually tried it three times. I went all professional. I did it neat. I did it with water. Then I did it with cola, as no doubt the mugs buying this would drink it.
Neat, it was somewhere between a watered down Jamesons and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red – if Johnnie Walker Red suddenly got anorexia and shrivelled down to a chopstick thin bottle of bottom shelf. With water (as a 50:50 whiskey to water) it tasted like someone had put three pinches of some hipster breakfast muesli in a litre of vodka. With cola. Well it tasted pretty much like any vodka coke would taste. Sweet, syrupy and a tiny little oomph from the alcohol content.
Industry Hypocrisy About Proper 12
Mr McG isn’t the first “celebrity” to brand a bottle of booze. He also won’t be the last. But what grates me is that someone claiming to be Irish, with all that national pride about all things Ireland and of course Irish Whiskey, would put out such junk. At least all of the other celebrity brands (at least the ones I’ve tried) across all categories, have at least tried to offer something that has some sense of decency.
Where it creates even more cringe, is the amount of bullshit merchants in the trade press, have got behind this and blown trumpets of success and quality. Reading the reviews of this on whisky retail sites, makes me want to go over there and slap them with a large fish, around the head, no less than thrice. Sure, they are just whoring it out because they will make a couple of quid on every bottle sold – but so they could make the same by being honest and saying “it’s crap – buy a bottle of Jameson instead”.
As for the industry pro’s – pro’s they all are. They have prostituted themselves to get behind this, rather than just tell the truth. Shame on all of you.
Summary
If you’ve run out of vodka, and the local off license only has Proper 12, then maybe it will do. But if you’re looking for Irish whiskey, you’ve come to the wrong place.
