There are a few bottles that are so uniformly great that I buy them constantly for other people for birthdays and holidays. Especially for the people in my life who, when I ask them what they want, they just smile and say, “Get me something good.”
Despite the vagueness of “good,” to me it actually translates to a very specific set of marching orders. For someone just beginning to cut their teeth in a product category, it means something that's nice enough to feel like a gift without being so nice that someone feels guilty about receiving it. It means being representative of a spirit type so that people will find it familiar—so no gimmicks or fancy stuff. (By this I mean that if someone says, “I think I might like rums,” you don't go and buy them a rum that was aged in soy sauce barrels, or gift them a rum produced on Mars, where a lack of oxygen produces rum that actually tastes like chardonnay.)
And here's another thing: it should also be pretty common, so if someone likes it they won't have to trek up to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro to restock their empty bottle. If you want to create more friends you can talk about good booze with, it helps to make this hobby as accessible as possible.
“What you get with Green Spot is a damned good Irish Whiskey that completely lacks the rough edges of something like Bushmill’s or Jameson.”
For all of those reasons, Green Spot had been my “go-to” bottle whenever someone requested I get them a “good” Irish whiskey. And even for my friends and family who have had pricier stuff, Green Spot was never a wrong answer. And similar to the Glenlivet 15 (another “never a wrong answer” product), I realized I had bought several bottles for random people over the years without ever getting one for myself. I decided to rectify that recently, and the time spent with the Green Spot has felt like catching up with an old friend.
First and foremost, you could be cynical and say, “It's Jameson.” Indeed, the Middleton Distillery produces a whole bunch of equally recognizable brands under one roof, including Jameson, Tullamore Dew, Redbreast, and Powers. This is basically equivalent to saying that an Infiniti Q60 is a gussied-up Nissan. Or maybe that two brothers are the mostly same person because they came from the same lady.
For some time, Green Spot was beloved because it was one of those legendary whiskies everyone praised for being super duper good, but it wasn't obtainable in America. Kind of like how everyone swears that Guinness somehow tastes better in Ireland, even though nobody can say precisely why. Sometime around 2014 or so, we actually started seeing Green Spot on shelves thanks to a global re-launch. Unsurprisingly, its luster has faded a little bit, as tends to happen when people actually get their hands on the legendary things they've always wanted. (I'll get to that shortly.)
What you get with Green Spot, straight up, is a really damned good Irish Whiskey. It completely lacks the rough edges of something like Bushmill's or the standard Jameson, probably because it's aged on the order of between 7 to 10 years. You don't get any crazy fancy aging process or an overload of peat or sherry. There's nothing it's trying to hide behind. There's no gimmick about it being made from a distillery powered by water wheels or some shit. They don't run the distillate through crystals or lava rocks or charcoal or whatever.
Instead, there's just some very, very good whiskey. It smells unmistakable: one of the best aromas of anything on my shelf. If you threw a bunch of Good 'n Plenty candies into a cup of Chamomile tea, you'd be about 70% of the way there. It's comforting and enticing. Taste-wise, it's got a great one-two punch of upfront sweetness followed by a slow development into big barley tastes. If you don't know what barley tastes like as a general thing, this is a great bottle to teach you. It ends pleasantly, with a good interplay of oak and anise to tie everything together.
So now to the whole part about the popular word on Green Spot: a lot of internet whiskey connoisseurs have come to the conclusion that it's good, but it's light. Let's pause here for a minute. I've never sipped the Green Spot and been left yearning for more flavor. I think if you're going for an approachable, drinkable style of whiskey (what attracts many to Irishes), then the Green Spot checks that box as well as anything else.
My suspicion is that the same thing is going on here that happens at a site like Beer Advocate, where the highest rated beers are those that follow the more more more approach as evidenced by crazy-high ABVs, IPAs made with mountains of hops, or stouts that are so thick and heavy they pour like motor oil. You don't see many of those guys going gonzo for a good lager. Which, honestly, is sometimes exactly the style I want.
So back to the Green Spot: if you want something bolder and smokier, you probably want a scotch. If you want something way higher in ABV than the industry standard 40% you get here, you might want a single barrel bourbon. I won't pick nits with Green Spot because it doesn't offer what I don't expect it to. It used to be nowhere, and now it's everywhere, and I think that's pure and simple testament to the number of people who've tried it once and became excited to have it again.
