I threw together a bucket list when I turned thirty about various goals I wanted to accomplish before I turned 40 and number 23 on the list, was this:
23. Be able to buy a really rare bottle of whiskey for my 40th Birthday.
When Missus and I went to England this past April, I had a notion of finding a nice bottle of something and bringing it back home. When we were in London, I thought vaguely about trekking into Covent Garden to take a look at the Whiskey Emporium there, but one look at the general mass of humanity in that direction on the Saturday afternoon we were there convinced me that would be a less than thrilling idea.
We headed out west to stay a few days in the country and see some family I perused an Asda and a Tesco to see their selection and while we scored the brother in a law a nice bottle of single malt, I still didn’t find anything to tickle my fancy and so it came down to my last dance at the last chance saloon: the duty-free section at Heathrow International Airport.
To be honest, it wasn’t looking good. Nothing really tickled my fancy. I didn’t want a gigantic thing of whiskey to lug on an airplane (because that’s the thing with duty-free. It’s like, ‘Would you like a two-liter of Glenfiddich to take on your flight home?’) and I was honestly expecting to go home empty-handed when, randomly, in a checkout lane, I found a small bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and, suddenly, I found what I was looking for.
If there is a big fish/proverbial O.G. in the world of scotch whisky, it might well be Johnnie Walker. It is the highest-selling Scotch whisky in the world and sold in almost every country- per the wiki page, a whopping 41 million gallons of the stuff were sold in 2016 alone. The man himself, John Walker was born in 1805 and after his father died, the family sold the farm and invested in “an Italian warehouse, grocery, and wine and spirits shop on the High Street in Kilmarnock.” He was apparently a teetotaller and started out with rum, brandy, gin, and whisky but soon switched to mainly whisky.
After his death, his son and grandson were the ones who really established the brand and it’s generally been onwards and upwards ever since. Interestingly, I don’t know how long the family had control over the brand because they joined the Distillers Company in 1925 and then which was acquired by Guinness in 1986 before another merger created Diageo in 1997, but of all the whiskies I’ve looked at over the years, this might be one of the only ones that doesn’t have an interruption anywhere in its history that I can find. (So, no fires in distilleries, no bankruptcies, etc.)
They did move production out of the original hometown of Kilmarnock in 2012 and moved production to Diageo facilities in Fife and Glasgow— so it’s still made in Scotland, just not the original hometown- which drew some controversy/protests at the time.
Anyone who has walked past a whisky shelf probably knows the score on Johnnie Walker: you’ve got Red, Black, Double Black, Green (rarer sight, but still seen), Gold (rare, IMO), Platinum (never seen one in real life) and then finally at the top of the color chart, you’ve got Blue. (There’s also Johnnie Walker Swing, apparently- which is in a distinctive bottle that allows it to rock back and forth and the design was originally used on sailing ships which is kind of cool. But I’ve never seen that either.)
Let’s talk about Johnnie Walker Blue:
Color: Amber/dark honey (I really need to expand my color vocabulary for these things. Looking at Pantone colors, I’d say goldenrod is too yellow, and amber and honey don’t quite fit but I found one that’s called ‘honey ginger’ that seems pretty close to the mark.)
Nose: This one was a difficult one to unpack. The first time around, I got notes of cachaca from it- very much a citrus and brown sugar combination. The second time around, it was more of a sweet and smoky smell. Salted caramel isn’t quite how I’d describe it- smoked brown sugar may be closer to the mark.
Body: You know that BTS song, ‘Butter’? (Google it if you don’t.) I’m pretty sure they were singing about ladies and their smooth soft skin, but if they were singing about a whisky, it would be this one. So. Damn. Smooth. Perfectly balanced, sits great on the tongue with a burst of spice. There’s a lot of buttery caramel goodness here— and maybe a hint of raisins?
Finish: Tastes smooth. Goes down smoothly. It’s like a velvet hug for the cockles of your heart.
Overall: This was an incredibly smooth whisky that is eminently sippable and more than lives up to the hype. The real question I (and am sure many of us) will be left to wrestle with is that of price point. Is this worth dropping $200 on for a full bottle of the stuff? I think it might be. (There’s plenty of whisky gatekeeping out there on the internet, but if I believe anything it’s probably this: any bottle can be worth buying if you have the right people to drink it with.) My Grade: 10/10