What Is It?

Monkey Shoulder is a new vatted malt product from William Grant & Sons consisting of malts from 3 distilleries: Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie (all of which are Grant distilleries mind you). It is crafted from a small bottling of 27 bourbon casks.

From Wm Grant & Sons…
“With the launch of Monkey Shoulder in the UK, we are looking to demystify malt whisky and offer new consumers an accessible, great tasting malt that retains authenticity whilst breaking the more traditional malt mold. The feedback so far from the trade has been very positive and we hope consumers will be as upbeat about the product.�

Lore

The name Monkey Shoulder, despite the menageric reference seemingly common to vatted malts (see Sheep Dip, Pig’s Snout), actually refers to a repetitive injury affliction distillery workers used to get from turning barley on the malting floors in the days before malting automation.

What IS Going On Here?

Cool packaging, funky names, targeting the martini bar crowd. These are the basic elements of success when aiming for that lucrative 20something – 35ish lounge bar crowd. Grant is heavily pushing Monkey Shoulder as a cocktail ingredient – even going so far to promote a “Monkey & Coke” (hey – don’t knock it until you try it…isn’t that what’s scribbled in high school yearbooks across the land?!?).

There may have been some serendipity involved in the genesis of Monkey Shoulder under the “I’ve got a problem which might solve your problem” category. There is some speculation that Monkey Shoulder became a destination for the, ultimately, disappointing product from Kininvie (Monkey Shoulder’s most prominent component) which has never released a single malt.

So, not unlike the US Postal Service’s NY sorting facility delivering all of their dead letters to Santa Claus to the Kris Kringle trial in “Miracle on 34th St.”, I can imagine some suit at Wm Grant & Sons saying, “Hey…I think I know what we can do with all of that undrinkable Kininvie malt…”

Initial Tasting Evidence

For what it’s worth here’s some tasting notes I’ve found out there…
“sweet”
“attractive, cute, and easy-drinking. doesn’t take water”

Relevance to KOTQ

Monkey Shoulder is not available here in the US and there do not appear to be any (current) plans to release it in the US. So, as far as direct relevance goes, Monkey Shoulder is little more than a curiosity. However, Monkey Shoulder is a new development in the industry worthy of KOTQ’s notice and, as a potential harbinger of things to come, particulary in the burgeoning vatted malt world (of which the KOTQ does have an interest), Monkey Shoulder is an important data point to understand considering its vatted malt pedigree, intention for mixed drinks, and role in attracting “brown spirits” to a wider audience. Don’t be surprised if more things like it come down the pike.