Okay, so over the weekend I had a chance to get a little extravagant with a dinner, so I ordered a shot of the fabled Johnnie Walker Blue. (And in a place known for a loose hand at the bar, I got a very stingy 1.000 ounce pour for about $35…)
Anyway… nice, but I can’t see it being worth $150-200 a bottle. Gentleman Jack is just as smooth and even at a far lower price, and has that nice warm bourbon overtone rather than the slightly biting scotch note.
So I followed up with my usual, Knob Creek, and got a very generous pour for $10. Backed with a Fat Tire on draft, it went well with my Kansas City strip.
Anyway, thoughts about JW Blue? Compared to Red and Black, and other things?
I agree. Johnnie Walker Blue is delicious, but like most top-shelf liquor, it’s usually not worth the money. Nikka and Hibiki are my go-to fancy scotches. At $50-60 a bottle, they cost 1/3-1/4 that of JW Blue, and taste nearly as good. Even more economical is Haig Club, if you can find it. I’ve seen it for $20-30 a bottle and it’s as good as many scotches that cost twice as much.
I think it’s good, but not $150-$200 good. More like $100 good. My favorite bang-for-buck is Johnnie Walker Green, usually around $60 a bottle. They supposedly discontinued it a few years back, much to my dismay, but I’ve been seeing it back on the shelves, so I assume it’s back?
I tried Johnnie Walker blue once and thought it was far too smooth. If you like blended whiskeys, you might want to try Black Bottle: Black Bottle : The Whisky Exchange
That’s pretty much where I’m at. I don’t drink brown goods to have it slide down like olive oil; I like strong, balanced flavors and a little punch to it. I am always disappointed when I’m into a bottle of Gentleman Jack and remember that on the whole it’s a tad bland for my tastes. (Then a few years later I forget again, and…)
Oh, well, it was nice to check off a box on the list and be able to move on without worrying about JW Blue any more. There’s always the hunt for Van Winkel to occupy my time.
If somebody else was paying, I might try it to “check a box” as the OP says. But order it myself…no way. I’ll stick to the Knob Creek the OP mentions as well.
I had JW Blue once at my bachelor party (the first drink of the night!), and it was good, but almost certainly not worth the money my brother paid for it. I’m with the ones who say it was too smooth. Generally speaking I think that whiskies should be flavorful, even if that means not perfectly smooth.
As far as blended Scotch goes, Dimple Pinch and Famous Grouse are probably my favorites, but I’m more of a bourbon or rye kind of guy as far as whiskeys go. (Current inventory: Knob Creek Reserve for straight drinking, Evan Williams for mixed drinks/cocktails and Rittenhouse 100 rye for cocktails).
I purchased a Johnnie Walker ‘Sampler Pack’ from a duty free shop at Heathrow many years back, which had small bottles of Black, Gold, Green, and Blue. Perhaps if I had done a side-by-side taste test, I might have said “yep, it’s definitely that much better than the others”, but as it was I saw nothing in the glass to justify the cost of an entire bottle. Of course, my tastes tend toward the more ‘robust’ Islay single malts (think “glassful of burnt peat moss”, so the ‘smoothness’ of the Blue Label may be lost on me.
As to the comparison between Gentleman Jack and Knob Creek…it seems to me that comparing Scotch to Bourbon[sup]*[/sup] is rather like comparing apples to oranges, isn’t it?
I know, Jack Daniels is technically ‘Tennessee whiskey’, and not ‘bourbon’ - but for all intents and purposes they are the same thing
Maybe, but if we can discuss porters and IPAs in the same sentence… As a solid bourbon aficionado, I am forever having the whiskey/whisky/single-malt crowd tell me I have to try this or that. All I can say is I’ve had some damned expensive shots of Listerine.
You can get a fifth of Laphroaig for ~$50, and it’s a delicious single malt Scotch. I would not pay $200 for blended whisky of any sort. On the other hand, I consider Laphroaig one of the best whiskies I’ve ever drank so I’m not a connoisseur or even very experienced at the high end of the whisky range.
On a recent cruise, I had the opportunity to do a taste test sampling of JW scotches. If I recall, we got to taste the black, gold, platinum and blue. We didn’t get to taste the more expensive teasers they had there, including one that cost $3,000 a bottle.
First, a disclaimer: I am not a scotch drinker, so much of the experience was no doubt wasted on me. I much, MUCH prefer bourbon, or even Irish whiskey. From my viewpoint, I could tell the blue was smoother, but no way, no how, is it worth $200 a bottle or $35 a shot. It just wasn’t all that much better than the black.
Not coincidentally, Laphroaig (and Lagavulin) is the perfect scotch for bacon. Just fry up the bacon and either throw a shot in with the finished bacon, throw a cover on it and let it steam, or put the bacon in a container, pour in a shot and roll it around to cover and soak in.
A buddy of mine who worked at a liquor store brought me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, and I didn’t care for it. It’s weird, I’m a big big fan of bourbon and blended whiskies, but I did not care for JW Blue. When I found out the price of a bottle, I predicted that my buddy wouldn’t be working at the store for long.
