Scotch Brown is an unusual name for a brown ink as Scottish whisky varies widely in colour from shades of light golden honey to dark amber giving the ink maker quite a range of colours to work with, and as you can see from the main picture this ink is definitely a chocolate brown and not a whisky brown.
I ordered the 30ml bottle, from Amazon, and it comes well packaged in a clear plastic box and the cap is sealed to the bottle using the usual plastic film you find on bottles these days. It unpacked easily and being a small square bottle it was very stable when I tested the ink.
The first test was the Q-Tip test both swab and stripes; the swab is a single dip in the bottle and then test, as you can see from the patch test it produced a very nice even colour and when you look at the stripes the bottom one which has had three passes with the Q-Tip isn’t all that different from the single pass; the only difference I really noticed was that by increasing the number of passes with the Q-Tip the reddish undertone became more apparent.
Text came out evenly and a little darker than the swab test and the smudge test had the ink drying somewhere between 15-20 seconds, which I felt was acceptable; but as always this will vary dependent upon your choice of paper et cetera.
In use the ink was flowed smoothly and was well-behaved, I experienced no skipping or hard starts even when I left the pen uncapped for a short while; this is neither a wet or a dry ink it sits happily in the middle which makes it a very pleasant ink to use.
If you are looking for a nice chocolate brown ink I think this ink could be the way to go, my 30ml bottle cost £5.99GBP but if you think you will need more than this then I would recommend Monteverde’s larger 90ml bottle which is available, at time of writing, from Cult Pens. As a day to day ink I think this would be fine to use on most occasions and an ideal colour for Autumn journal entries and sketches.
Finally, if anyone was wondering, the bottle of whisky in the main picture is Johnnie Walker Blue Label and it really is as good as its reputation. It is, without doubt, the best blended Scottish whisky in the world and if anyone from Johnnie Walker reads this post please know that I am more than happy to ‘review’ any number of bottles that you would like to send me.
Disclaimer: The ink was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
The Indian Marmalade Company 