Johnnie Walker Blue Label

[thanis]

Been a while since I posted.

Need some advise on Dewar's 12 year. Is it as good as the JW blue?

Just wanted to mention I had the chance in December to sample Johnnie Walker Blue Label. I've sampled several bottom to mid-shelf whiskey / whisky (bourbon). My first time with something that should be considered top shelf.

The Blue lost, in my humble opinion, a lot of peat. Not that it was a bad or good thing, just surprised me that a top shelf would loose a key taste element of the bottom shelf.

Blue was great, an has me rethinking a few things. My favorite whiskey (and as it happens bourbon) is Jim beam Rye followed by Jim Beam O. Favorite Scotch has been Dewar's White. I tried JB Black, but find I prefer JBO / white.

What I like most is to take a shot of Dewar's, then sip Jim. The shock of a straight shot and mild peat of Dewar's helps my pallet prep for the sweeter Jim.

This is all bottom shelf (WT, JB, Evan Williams bourbons along with Jack and Dickel, scotches, irish, canadian, etc), and now that I had the JW Blue, I realise my sampling of the mid shelf had a false assumptions. That there was some progression from each lable. That a labels bottom shelf's offering evolved to mid to high. I'm guessing that they can actually transform a bit more, where you sometimes finf the high of one lable takes on notes of a different lables bottom shelf offering.

Scotches (single malts) all fit in that mid shelf range for the most part, and tend to be better then your blended bottom shelf scotches. I'm guessing by the time you get to a top shelf scotch, even blended, you are picking up a better blend.

It would be interesting if more silsingle malt US made whiskey were offered in US markets .

Well I'm rambling.

[Jono]

thanis, you might find this recent conversation of interest:

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17110

[cowdery]

Johnnie Blue and Dewars 12 are in completely different classes. You could probably buy a case of Dewars 12 for the price of a bottle of Johnnie Blue.

Most people agree Johnnie Blue is overpriced or, one might say, ego-priced. It may be twice as good as Johnnie Black but it's not 10x better.

The other thing to say here is a blend is a blend. The blend makers are trying to differentiate and come out with a lot of super-premium expressions. What they offer is familiarity. If you're a Johnnie Walker drinker and you want to try something different and better, try a different and better expression of Johnnie Walker. That's how the people who make Johnnie Walker want you to think.

But it's still a blend.

As for U.S.-made single malts, very few of them taste anything like scotch because, in the U.S., to use the term 'malt whiskey' it has to be aged in new charred oak barrels, which most scotches are not.

And since currently all U.S.-made single malts are from micro-distilleries, they're all young and expensive. All that said, I will say that the most recent time I tasted Wasmund's single malt, I was surprised that it actually tasted pretty close to scotch, so maybe there are some others that do too.