Sigh. When I was called to the bar (the legal bar, as in when I was made a lawyer), a friend who had flown in especially for the occasion gifted me a 375 ml bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. It cost him north of $100, and was a very nice and thoughtful gift. He and I enjoyed a glass of it, and it was very nice. More than “very nice,” actually, it was perfect. After our drink, it went back in the cupboard, to await another important occasion.
A month or two later, I had to be out of town for a week or so. It was a family matter involving my quite elderly father in central Canada (I’m in Alberta), and it was neither easy nor fun. When I got back, I said to my wife, “Phew, Sis and I did what we set out to do. [Don’t ask; it was complicated.] Hey, since Sis and I accomplished XYZ, let’s have a glass of that Johnnie Walker Blue.”
“Oh, it’s gone,” my wife said. “That stuff is tasty!” Yep, she had finished off the rest of the 375 ml bottle during my absence. “You can get another.”
“Darlin’, do you know what that bottle of Scotch cost Buddy?”
“I dunno. Ten bucks?”
There are many reasons why I’m divorced. My wife finishing my gift bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue is a small one, but it’s one nonetheless.
someone bought me a double of blue in an airport bar (he was on the way to “where the women aren’t picky” celebrating his divorce and I didn’t get to know how much but it was at least a 50 or so glass… I sipped it for a long while …
Well, that explains why I’ve never seen Blue round here. I see Red, Black and occasionally Gold. I wonder if (a few hundred miles south of Scotland, as we are), there’s a certain aloofness in play here. “Pay that much for a blend?” - That sort of thing.
I’m disposed to that as well, but Johnnie Walker Blue is just a damn fine drink. Sometimes you just need to put assumptions aside and drink that good stuff. I may have to get a bottle for some special occasions. My wife won’t drink single malts but I bet she’d sip some Blue.
I like the bottled-in-bond bourbon from our local distillery, Boulder Spirits. They also have b-in-b single malt that I haven’t tried. I can heartily recommend their “Ginsky” as well. From my perspective, the best part is that the distillery and tasting room are walking distance from my house.
First-time Scotch drinker? No, I don’t think I’d recommend an Ardbeg 10 or a Laphroaig 10 (you might see a Laphroaig “Select” at the store, but it’s garbage at half the price it sells for). Probably not an Islay of any sort.
Some people call them “smoke monsters” for a reason.
First-time looking for a palatable “smooth” whisky in single malt? Just grab a Glenmo 12. You’ll enjoy it, and you can pour it for guests without shame.
I was glancing over at a shelf just now and remembered I once enjoyed something called Lismore, which is a Speyside single malt that was inexpensive as I recall.
If you want a blended Scotch, then IMHO, Teacher’s Highland Cream is IMHO one of the best bottom-shelf low-smoke Scotches out there. It’s been around for a long time and nothing wrong with it at all.
Or, if in a bar you just want to know what a little bit of a smoky taste is like, just have the bartender pour you a Johnnie Black, neat. Blended but not disgusting like their toilet-cleansing product red label is.
I see some people are discussing Irish whiskies, about which I have some excellent recommendations for any price range, but since OP is looking for Scotches, that’s what I have to say.
So I went to open an old-ass bottle of single malt, and the bone-dry cork instantly crumbled in half at the slightest touch. Luckily, my trusty Swiss Army knife and I were able to extract the remains without getting debris in the bottle. How I re-closed the bottle is left as an exercise for the reader.
Johnnie Walker Green vatted malt was my favorite back in the day. Well priced for what it was, and delicious. Blue was good, but I felt overpriced. Don’t know how Green is now, or if it’s even still around.
As a younger man I thought Islay scotches were disgusting, but now think they’re where it’s at. I think finding your way to a bar with a good selection and knowledgeable staff and sampling a few would be the way to go.
As a new scotch drinker, I would guess that something like Glenfiddich 12 is the most likely to be acceptable, but something like Ardbeg 10 the most likely to wow.
At least I can presume it was drank neat. I was dreading to hear it “Blue & Coke”.
Wife and I recently finished a 700ml of Jameson’s which she liked to my surprise. And last week I got a liter of Glenfiddich 12 which was the highest price whisky they had at Asda. I’ll need to go to Waitrose to buy stuff like Walker Double Dark yet it wouldn’t be hard to drop £100 on a bottle of top-top-shelf stuff.
Kinda funny, at the Asda all the other stuff is both netted and has the security top. The Glenfiddich was not at all specially wrapped and in sort of a 3-rounded-corner box (forget if that’s their “thing”). First box, empty. So is second. As it happens a worker passes by and “bring it to the front and they’ll get the bottle”. Took a while and that was the first time I ever had to pay for an empty box and wait for the bottle - like some video game.
Yes the rounded-triangular box & bottle (apparently called the “tround” and is supposed to represent the three pillars of whisky making: air, water and barley.) Okay then.
Best I’ve had since our trip to Edinburgh, though we had some tasty stuff at an Irish bar in West End London.
They must have different packaging available, because I have some Glenfiddich 15 which is in a triangular bottle, all right, but it came in a round tube, not a triangular box.
Not quite sure why Johnny Walker is being discussed here, it’s not a malt whisky.
I don’t drink malt anymore, it is only drink which made me weirdly angry at everyone. Best avoided.
I do sometimes drink in the Pot Still in Glasgow, a whisky pub with about 100 different ones, but if two tourists separately ask for advice on whisky, the place grinds to a halt as each of the two barmen go through the 20 quid a glass selling routine which largely is “this one is smokey, this one is peaty”, while about 30 odd locals stand and stare because nobody is actually serving beer anymore and spending all their time on those damned tourists.
Some women seem to like that pub because the barmen wear kilts, and a lot of the whiskys are up a ladder.
