Head to head · unusually close flavour match
Monkey Shoulder vs Teeling Small Batch
Monkey Shoulder is the cheaper bottle and the dearer whisky: £100 a litre of pure alcohol against £99. That inversion is the whole of this comparison.
Compiled by WhiskeyCask Editorial · Last verified 2026-07-30
Specifications side by side
| Monkey Shoulder | Teeling Small Batch | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Blended malt | Irish blend |
| Origin | Speyside, Scotland | Dublin, Ireland |
| Age | No age statement | No age statement |
| Strength | 43% ABV | 46% ABV |
| Cask | Not disclosed | Ex-bourbon barrel, Central American rum cask |
| Bottle | 700 ml | 700 ml |
| RRP observed | £30 | £32 |
| Per 10cl | £4.29 | £4.57 |
| Per litre of alcohol | £100 | £99 |
| Chill-filtered | Not stated | No |
What separates them
Different countries: Monkey Shoulder from Speyside, Scotland, Teeling Small Batch from Dublin, Ireland.
Monkey Shoulder is a blended malt, Teeling Small Batch a irish blend.
Neither carries an age statement, so neither discloses its youngest spirit.
Teeling Small Batch lists ex-bourbon barrel and central american rum cask. Monkey Shoulder publishes no cask detail at all.
Chill filtration: Monkey Shoulder does not say, Teeling Small Batch is not.
What the price buys
Teeling Small Batch is £2.00 dearer a bottle than Monkey Shoulder.
Strength reverses that: Monkey Shoulder is £100 a litre of pure alcohol against £99.
Across the 32 bottles we can cost this way, Monkey Shoulder is 4th cheapest and Teeling Small Batch 3rd cheapest.
Flavour, compared
View as table
| Axis | Monkey Shoulder | Teeling Small Batch |
|---|---|---|
| Peaty | 1 | 0 |
| Sweet | 7 | 7 |
| Fruity | 6 | 6 |
| Spicy | 5 | 5 |
| Woody | 4 | 4 |
| Sherried | 3 | 3 |
| Cereal | 6 | 5 |
| Oily | 6 | 7 |
No axis reaches the 3-point gap we call meaningful. Widest is peaty, 1 against 0.
Identical on sweet, fruity, spicy, woody and sherried.
Each bottle in its own right
Monkey Shoulder
Vanilla, orange and malt, built to survive ice and ginger ale. An honest cocktail malt.
William Grant & Sons does not name the three constituent malts anywhere on its own site — the widely repeated Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie attribution is unofficial. The 43% we list is the producer's US figure; no UK strength is published at all.
Full record →Teeling Small Batch
Vanilla and spiced rum sweetness at 46%, non-chill-filtered. Remarkable for the money.
Fully aged in ex-bourbon, then married in Central American rum casks for 'up to 12 months' — note that is a ceiling, not a fixed period.
Full record →Both listed for highball; only Monkey Shoulder for cocktails and value; only Teeling Small Batch for value at 46% and first irish whiskey.
Where these specifications come from
Producer and retailer pages for Monkey Shoulder and Teeling Small Batch: monkeyshoulder.com, teelingwhiskey.com. Figures are what those pages published when we last checked them, on 2026-07-30.