The Man With The Frown Is Coming Around To Bring You Down

Not a nice man, and a whiskey to match. (Photo lifted from Instagram)

For most of my career as a drinks writer, such as it is, I generally avoided writing negative reviews. I figured, there’s enough good stuff out there, why waste time harping on the bad stuff? I’d rather steer people to things than steer them away. There are always writers out there willing to trash something, and get clicks in the process. That wasn’t me. And over time, booze brands and PR firms figured this out. I stopped getting sent questionable products — like, for instance, the Tabasco-flavored Southern Comfort that arrived on my doorstep one fateful day around 2011, and which is forever seared in my memory. Eventually I was only drinking Quality Hooch. And at some point I started wondering if I could even distinguish the bad from the good anymore, or if it all tasted good to me because it was all supposed to taste good.

Well, I can thank Conor McGregor for confirming that my critical faculties remain intact. It was McGregor, of UFC fame and criminal/legal notoriety, who launched Proper No. Twelve Irish Whiskey a few years ago. At the time, I had only the vaguest idea of who he was, but the whiskey was being heavily touted in the industry. I was invited, along with a bunch of other writers, to try it and a plethora of other whiskeys at the Irish consulate around the time of its launch. And try it we did. And a few minutes later, a gaggle of us were huddled in the middle of the room, asking each other, “Is it just me, or is this whiskey absolutely horrible?” It wasn’t just any of us, it was ALL of us who unanimously pronounced it utter garbage. And that, for me at least, was where the story was going to end. If a publicist were to ask me why I hadn’t written about one of the briskest-selling new whiskeys to come down the pike, I was prepared to say that I was doing them a favor, and you’re welcome. But nobody asked, and sales certainly didn’t suffer without my endorsement.

In 2021, when I started writing bottle reviews for Liquor.com, my situation changed pretty drastically. I didn’t have a say in what I was to review — I was now at the mercy of some arcane SEO-driven system, the workings of which completely escape me. I couldn’t just stick to the good stuff. I had to review whatever came my way with complete honesty, whether it was a pleasant surprise (I had no idea Rémy Martin’s cognacs were so uniformly good) or a disappointment (I love Patron’s blanco tequila, but the añejo leaves me cold). So when I was assigned Proper No. Twelve, I did not mince words. The fact that Mr. McGregor (who has since sold a large part of his share in the brand) is a repugnant human being only made it more enjoyable to write.

I’m in frequent contact with spirits publicists who bust their asses day in and day out to provide me and my fellow scribes with everything we need to get our writing done in a timely fashion. They’re answering emails at 11 PM, messengering bottles to our apartments on a moment’s notice, scrounging around for the obscure nuggets of information we need, setting up interviews with distillers, you name it. And when I write bad reviews, I won’t lie, I think about those people who enabled me to write them, and I feel… less than wonderful. But just as they have to do their job, I have to do mine. And if Proper No. Twelve didn’t taste like Listerine, I wouldn’t have to say it does.

This is all a very long wind-up to the link to my review of Proper No. Twelve, which is right… over… -> HERE <-. It was published, coincidentally, the very same day as my takedown of one of the nastiest non-medicinal beverages I’ve ever had the bad fortune to try, Red Stag by Jim Beam. And that review is also just a click away (click -> HERE <-). I’ve got to admit, I don’t relish writing bad reviews, but they ARE pretty fun to write. And I hope they’re fun (and informative) to read, as well.