In December I picked up a Johnnie Walker Discovery box, containing five 50ml bottles of various Johnnie Walker expressions.  My goal has always been to do a blind tasting, and after picking up a Green and Red to round it out, I sat down to see how well I know the Johnnie Walker line up.

The Setup
The whiskies in question are the Johnnie Walker expressions of Red, Black, Double Black, Gold, Green, 18 and Blue.  I poured a dram (~25ml) of each bottle into a Glencairn glass and arranged them in a line.  Then I set up a line of seven numbered cards.  My lovely assistant then sent me out of the room and randomly placed the drams in front of a numbered card, recording which bottle’s dram was on which number.

The Nosing
I went through each glass, nosing and making my notes on each.  I found my nose quickly burned out, and needed a refresh/break several times through the lineup.  On first nosing, I picked up some key differences, but as the nosing progressed, all but two of them became very similar.

The Tasting
Tasting mostly followed the nose in the key attributes.  Lot’s of sweet, fruit and apple.  Very little smoke!  What was there, was very subtle.

The Guesses
After making my way through the lineup, I reviewed my notes and made a guess at each one.  After round one, I had a total of…. ONE correctly identified whiskey!  Okay then!  I took another guess at the remaining six, and got ONE MORE right!  After that, the guesses became a bit of process of elimination, and I never did get them all correctly identified.  

The Whiskies

1 – Smoke, light peat on the nose.  Fruity and jammy.  Light smoke and figs on the palate.
My guesses:  Double Black.  Black.  Blue.  Gold.
The Whiskey:  Green

2 – No smoke. Lovely, fruity, apple.  Sweet.
My guesses:  Gold.  Green.  Blue.
The Whiskey:  Double Black

3 – Apply, no smoke.  Sweet, then to apple pie.
My guesses:  18.  Green.  Gold.  Double Black.
The Whiskey:  Black

4 – Fresh cut greenery, onion perhaps (very unique!).  Citrus acidity.  Muted, alcohol notes.
My guesses:  Red.
The Whiskey:  Red

5 – Honey sweetness. Black-like on the palate. Gentle finish.
My guesses:  Black.  Double Black.  Green.
The Whiskey:  Blue

6 – Thin, light.  Subtle.  Light dance of sweet.
My guesses:  18. Blue. Black.
The Whiskey:  Gold

7 – Butterscotch, musty.  Rich, complex. Deep.  Awesome.
My guesses:  Blue.  18.
The Whiskey:  18

Final Thoughts
I was a tiny bit surprised that the Blue eluded me.  I tasted it just a few weeks ago with Bruce and thought it would stand out.  Amongst the lineup of seven, it seemed to have nestled in with the Black and Double Black – interesting.

The 18 is by far the standout of the bunch – distinct, rich, complex, multi-layered.  An excellent dram and a real treat.  I had that one pegged as Blue, but when that missed, I was happy to confirm it as the 18.  Lovely dram, lovely enough to perhaps pull me into a very special purchase one day.

The Red was interesting – the nose is so unique, and not at all unpleasant.  The palate however did bring in the grain alcohol harshness, and it stood out as the least refined of the bunch.

I thought I would do better with the Green, given how many drams of it I’ve had over the years.  I was also surprised that the honey sweetness of the Gold did not find its way to a correct guess.  It has been a couple of years since I had Gold, but my memory of it’s honey sweetness remains.

The Black and Double Black – these were tough ones.  I got no smoke on the double black through all the rounds – nothing on the nose or palate.  Sweetness more than anything.  Again, it has been many years since I tasted the Double Black, and don’t recall if I should have been expecting smoke or not.

This was a fun exercise, for sure.  The Johnnie Walker 18 stands out as the best whiskey by a long shot.  I was pleasantly surprised by the Red, which also stands out for its uniqueness.  The rest seemed to blend together for me tonight.

The whisky advent calendar was quite an awesome experience – I fully enjoyed tasting so many different, new-to-me and unique whiskies from all over the world. I loved the anticipation and surprise of what was behind each door, I loved the unique artwork on the tiny sample bottles from That Boutique-y Whisky Company, and the whole experience was a real pleasure.

However, it was daunting! After a week, I found I wasn’t able to keep up with the daily dram, and then started ‘batching’ them. Then I fell behind and ran into the holidays, illness, and just now finally finished up the drams. I don’t think I would try to do an “advent calendar” again, but I simply loved having the 24 single-serving drams of whiskies that I would otherwise likely never come across. I’ll pick another one of these up some time, but only to have the wide variety of whiskies to sample and make proper tasting notes on.

There were some definite gems in there, and only one dram that I actually did not like at all, and that may have just been a bad bottle.

Definitely behind, but a few more days worth of notes added this week. The journey has been really, really interesting. I would never have sampled such a wide range of whiskies from all over the world without this sort of sampler pack. Some real winners in there, along with some that don’t quite hit the mark for me.

Still working through the Advent Calendar – lots of fun! More updates today, head on over.

/advent-2021/

To my utter surprise and delight, we found That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2021 whisky holiday calendar at the local NSLC! Had to grab that for several weeks of discovery and exploration! Check out my running commentary over on the Advent 2021 page. I’m not promising a daily update, but I’ll do my best.

This is a minor project I’ve been meaning to get to for quite a while. I finally got into the spirit of it this afternoon and finished it up. I really enjoy the packaging and the bottles of these great whiskies – it is part of the whole experience, as Bruce reminded me recently.

Perhaps I was inspired by his wise words and finished this up. I always keep the cannisters and super interesting packaging, and the goal was to put them on some shelves, somewhere. Now, I’ve dressed up my half-finished basement workstation with a lovely wall of memories.

The “shelving” is nothing more than some repurposed dollar store shoe racks. A bit of measuring, some cuts here and there, and I ended up with a set of nice, light shelves that hold these containers just perfectly.