As I noted to a friend rather recently, “I do this so that you don’t have to.” This avowal has never been more pertinent than as it relates to the beverage before us now – The Famous Grouse.

But before I ventured to taste this drink and then articulate my views, I wanted to know if the namesake bird for this blended Scotch was even a resident of Scotland. I assumed it was, but hey, you never know. Charlatan product pushers are caught working that way from time to time. They sometimes choose their snazzy product icons without having first investigated the suitability.

Sure enough, the red grouse (or the “moorbird” as the Scots sometimes call it) is quite plentiful in Scotland. It lives in the moors, primarily feasting on wild heather flowers. But do you want to know that for which these birds appear to best known? Nope, it’s not necessarily for their cuisine qualities, although as I was investigating, I did locate a few tantalizing recipes. The Scots love to get together to blow these things away. In fact, grouse shooting is a pretty significant sport in Scotland, and so with that, I discovered the connection between this Scotch and its quasi-majestic moor fowl.

The Famous Grouse Blended Scotch Whisky is perfect for target practice.

A slender 750 mL bottle makes for a worthy challenge at 10 meters – unless you are wielding my Sig Sauer P226. Then you need to move it up onto the ridge to make it a real challenge.

Another determining quality for such a use is that, while I’ve never actually done it, I’ll bet it is a lot of fun to shoot a bottle full of whisky. Of course, this is often cost prohibitive. But not so with The Famous Grouse. You can pick up a few of these, line them up on a log next to the even less-expensive Scoresby bottles you decided to grab as well, and make for a day of honing your home protection skills.

But just in case you decide to drink this stuff, remember, I drink it so that you don’t have to.

The nose of this clay pigeon smelled a little like fruity (maybe citrus) hand soap – richly artificial because it isn’t a name brand, and somewhat medicinally bitter because the average Joe-college has to open it with his friends and say something like, “Whoa, dude, this stuff is gonna kick our butts.”

The palate was tough to discern, but I think I figured it out. This particular blend is comprised of the various and notable editions pictured here.

Please note that the children’s acetaminophen in the photo is crucial. This is what dulls the razor-like edge of this whisky, not only because the folks at The Famous Grouse knew you would need a pain-reliever, but because it reveals the orange infusion you suspected in the nosing.

The finish borders between medium and long – medium in the sense that it lingers long enough to remind you why you intend to shoot the bottle in a few moments; long in the sense that you have enough time to reconsider and then affirm this decision as you imagine a 9 mm round passing through the bottle in slow motion producing a detonation of amber and glass.

Now to be clear, I’m not recommending that you do this. I am merely suggesting that it sure seems like one of the few uses this particular distillery had in mind for its whisky when it was named The Famous Grouse. I can’t imagine that they expected us to drink it.