NOSE

Approachable without being simple. The fruit is the first thing, ripe, generous, summer-warm. Stone fruit and a little citrus. Then butter and vanilla rise underneath, soft and steady. There’s a whisper of honey and something faintly floral. This is a nose that doesn’t require effort. It rewards attention, but it doesn’t demand it.

PALATE

The fruit continues but there’s more body than the nose suggests. Buttery vanilla and light honey mid-palate. The malt character comes through. This is unmistakably Scotch, not trying to be anything else. Gentle baking spice toward the back half without heat or aggression. It’s balanced in a way that takes work to achieve and looks easy when it’s done.

FINISH

Clean and warm. Honest length, not brutally short, not artificially extended. The fruit fades first, the spice stays a little longer, and then a faint warmth persists. Nothing lingers that shouldn’t. This is a finish that invites a second glass.

✓

You want a genuinely good everyday blended Scotch at a fair price and you’re done overpaying for a name on the label

✓

You’re introducing someone to whisky and you need something that won’t challenge them before they’re ready, but that you’d also happily drink yourself

✓

You’re building cocktails and you need a Scotch with enough character to hold up in a Whisky Sour or a Highball without disappearing

POINT 1

A Gold Medal winning blended Scotch at £45 represents genuine value, blending, done well, is a different kind of craft

POINT 2

This was made by someone who judges whisky for a living… Greg Dillon has judged at the World Spirits Competition, IWSC, and London Spirits Competition. Founders’ Choice is the product of that judgement applied to a bottle he wanted to drink himself

POINT 3

Small batch means there’s a finite amount of this specific expression, the next batch may be slightly different as component whiskies change so buy this one… and the next…

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Neat first, always. A 10 minute rest in the glass opens up the fruit and lets the spice settle. You’ll understand what it is before you start adding anything

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Whisky Sour: 50ml Founders’ Choice, 25ml fresh lemon juice, 15ml simple syrup, egg white. Shake hard with ice, double strain, serve up. The fruit in the whisky and the citrus amplify each other

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Highball: 50ml over ice in a tall glass, top with good ginger ale or soda, squeeze of lemon. Stir once. An excellent summer drink

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Old Fashioned: 50ml, barspoon of brown sugar syrup, 2 dashes Angostura, large ice cube, orange peel expressed over the top