• Conor McGregor has launched a new whiskey called Proper No. Twelve.
• The UFC fighter has not fought in the Octagon for almost two years, but during that time he worked on his personal brand — and that includes moving into the alcohol industry.
• We were sent a bottle of McGregor's new whiskey to try.
• To say it did not go down well is putting it kindly. Most Business Insider journalists hated it.

Thanks for signing up!

Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app

Advertisement

If there's one thing journalists like, it's free booze.

So when a bottle of Conor McGregor's new whiskey, Proper No. Twelve, was sent to Business Insider's London bureau, it made its way through each desk quicker than currency and cigarettes get passed around prison blocks.

But any excitement that we could drink on the clock faded when we realised one not-so-sobering thing: This was not good whiskey.

"It smelled like ethanol and tasted only marginally better," our fintech guru Oscar Williams-Grut said. "A small initial sip was deceptively OK, but subsequent snifters were like vanilla flavouring trying to cover up rubbing alcohol."

Advertisement

This is an assessment as short and as savage as the left hook McGregor famously used to knock José Aldo out cold at UFC 194 in December 2015.

But the finance desk did not hold back, the brutes. Markets expert Will Martin followed up with this: "It tasted like bad whiskey watered down with cheap vanilla extract."

He added, "I am happy to be quoted on that."

McGregor used the world's oldest licensed whiskey distillery in Ireland and worked with David Elder, a master distiller formerly of Guinness, to create a "unique" spirit "from the waters of Saint Columb's Rill that flow through the alkaline-saturating limestone and basalt on their way to sphagnum peat lands." This helps it acquire "the flavour that has been prized for centuries."

Advertisement

At least, that's what the company says.

Almost 100 blends were developed before the final blend became Proper No. Twelve, a triple-distilled whiskey described as a "properly balanced blend of the finest golden grain and single malt" aged in oak barrels. A bottle costs $29.99.

But none of this washed with Business Insider.

"I've drank a lot of bad whiskeys in my day — this was one of them," said Alex Lockie, our news editor and military blogging maestro.

Advertisement

Video producer Leon Siciliano said: "I don't really like any whiskey, and McGregor's safely fits into that."

But what happens if you dilute the bad whiskey taste with your favourite mixer?

"Admittedly, I'm not much of a whiskey drinker, but I struggled to get through my glass," said Harry Kersh, Business Insider's resident food taster. "I've had smoother whiskeys in the past, so I wouldn't recommend anybody drink this neat, but it would probably be fine with a mixer."

One colleague, who should probably remain anonymous, said it got him a bit "f---ed up" — but he did not stop at one drink.

Advertisement

I also did not stop at one. In the interest of a thorough review, I tried it neat (not again), with ginger beer (decent, but more for the fiery soda snap of the ginger beer than anything else), and with Irn-Bru (don't ask me why).

One thing I noticed was that it made my lips go a bit numb, and I felt as if I could probably take a good punch or a kick. So I decided it would be for the best if I went home.

The branding is just as disappointing

Yes, the quality of the whiskey may be poor, but the thing I was most disappointed with was the branding.

This is Conor McGregor, a former two-weight champion in UFC and Cage Warriors.

Advertisement

This is a guy who earns a living by taking his foot and using it as a weapon to kick people in the chin. Repeatedly. Until they've fallen to the canvas in a heap.

This is a guy who has an image of a crown-wearing gorilla eating a heart tattooed across what is probably 80% of his chest.

And this is a guy who once wore a custom suit that had the words "F--- you" as pinstripes.

Surely this was a chance to have some out-there branding distinctive from everything else in the supermarket — which is perhaps what sets the Sailor Jerry style out from a lot of the $30 rum pack — but McGregor and Proper No. Twelve failed to take advantage of that.

Advertisement

The green bottle and boring label are certainly not memorable. And neither are the contents.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufonyku82oqWalk5y%2FprPOq2Spqp%2BlsrN5zahkra%2BVocOmedahoKyjla56s7HVopywZWJlfnl5mA%3D%3D