Whisky I've Drank - Johnnie Walker Platinum Label 18 Years Old

Johnnie Walker Platinum Label is a rich and contemporary blended Scotch Whisky inspired by the Walker family's tradition of crafting 'private blends' for directors of its company and for special occasions. The Master Blender has crafted a contemporary 18 year old Scotch Whisky for today's sophisticated consumer and is rich and refined - a symbol of style that rewards those who take the time to savour it. The trademark Johnnie Walker smokiness is entrenched in this whisky that strongly embodies the sweet and elegant Speyside style. Crafted from single malt and grain whiskies, Platinum is a complex blend with deep layers of balanced flavours of both whisky and wood in which it has rested for a minimum of 18 years.

By Geoff Kleinman

The past couple of years have seen a number of changes to the Johnnie Walker line, most notably the release of Johnnie Walker Double Black, and the discontinuation of both Johnnie Walker Green Label and Johnnie Walker Gold Label (an 18 year old blend). One of the major reasons for this big shift is a severe shortage in availability of older malt whiskies. Whisky as a category has seen explosive growth over the last few years, much stronger than any of the whisky producers expected. This high demand has taken its toll specifically with stocks of older whiskies and dramatically with malts eighteen years and up.
With Johnnie Walker Gold Label sunsetting (it’s been replaced globally by Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve without an age statement and removed from US markets), the door opened for Diageo to bring out a new 18 year old product, Johnnie Walker Platinum Label, at a higher price point ($110).  The move is a little bit of a sleight of hand, with the elimination of a popular expression of Johnnie Walker in the US, a reformulation of the Gold Label brand outside of the US, and a $30 increase in price for an 18 year old offering.  Why didn’t Diageo just raise the price of Johnnie Walker Gold? Our best guess is that they wanted to take advantage of the velocity of having a new product in a market that’s fixated on innovation and new things, while at the same time letting a reformulated Gold Label find some traction globally before re-introducing it in the US as a new mid-level price point for their premium offerings.
The big question is, how does Johnnie Walker Platinum Label 18 Year compare to the outgoing Johnnie Walker Gold Label 18 year?  The answer is pretty simple: they are dramatically different blends of whisky.  Johnnie Walker Gold Label is considerably rounder, sweeter, and a lot less spicy and smokey than Johnnie Walker Platinum Label.  Johnnie Walker Gold Label is very much an expression of Cardhu and Clynelish while Johnnie Walker Platinum has a lot more Caol Ila (whose 18 year old malt vanished from the marketplace earlier in the year). Both Johnnie Walker Gold and Platinum Label are clearly Johnnie Walker, but they are very different in their flavors and flavor delivery.
Johnnie Walker Platinum Label Blended Scotch Whisky (40% ABV / 80 proof, $110) is amber in color with a nose that is a nice mix of raisin, sherry, ginger, oak, light peat smoke, and apricot. There’s also a subtle citrusy floral note that’s faintly in the mix. A couple of drops of water helps open up the nose, which is a little more subdued without it, and also really amps up the apricot. The entry is fairly soft and lightly sweet with light honey, apricot, sherry, and raisin. The mouthfeel in the entry is a lot thinner, drier, and less lush than the Gold Label. The flavors transition in the midpalate from slightly sweet to spicy as oak, strong ginger, and peat begin to emerge. Towards the end of the midpalate the Platinum Label intensifies in its smokiness and spice. It’s here where the grain whisky really shows itself, much more pronounced than it was in the Gold Label. This grain whisky is partly responsible for the finish, which is quite dry and spicy with a light smoky peat. One of the things we really enjoy about a good malt whiskey is the taste of the malt, but here some of the complexity, richness, and depth of malt flavor are absent, taken over by the spice and heat of the grain whisky. There’s no question that there are a couple spectacular malts hiding in this blend – we get a sense of them in flashes digging through the nose and at the start of the midpalate – but ultimately they are squandered on a blend that overtakes them, rather than showcasing them.
Priced at $110, Johnnie Walker Platinum will surely re-ignite the fierce debate between premium blended whisky versus single malt whisky. While Gold Label could make the claim that it delivered a malt-like experience in a softer, sweeter, gentler way, Platinum is anything but soft. Also, when you consider that Highland Park 18, one of the definitive single malts in the world, is only $20-30 more, and the phenomenal Highland Park 12 is $50 LESS, you have to ask yourself if a $100+ blended malt is really worth it. Johnnie Walker Master Blender Jim Beverage is typically much better at delivering balance and flavor than what he does here, making us think that his toolkit was highly restrained by the shortage of good malt. Ultimately, the value proposition of Johnnie Walker Platinum is pretty thin. Johnnie Walker Black and Double Black Label are both wonderful stepping stones into the world of whisky, offering an affordable and less aggressive option for the casual imbiber, but it’s hard to see Johnnie Walker Platinum as any form of stepping stone. Diageo has done a superb job with some of their image-based premium offerings like Ketel One and Ciroc Vodka, and Johnnie Walker Platinum Label fits neatly within that strategy. For many Platinum drinkers, the fact that they could be getting better bang for their buck with younger single malts won’t matter.

Whisky I've Drank - Johnnie Walker Double Black

By Geoff Kleinman

It’s a pretty big deal for an iconic brand like Johnnie Walker to put out a new product, and it’s an even bigger deal when it’s a new expression of one of their best known brands. Johnnie Walker Double Black made its debut in the duty free shops in airports of Europe and Asia where it was a big hit, so Johnnie Walker elevated it to a formal release for the US market.

Johnnie Walker Double Black (40%, 80 Proof $40) – it’s hard to look at Johnnie Walker Double Black without comparing it directly to the spirit it’s based on: Johnnie Walker Black Label. The first most noticeable difference between the two is that Johnnie Walker Double Black does not have any form of age statement on the bottle (Johnnie Walker Black Label contains spirits which are at least 12 years old). This follows along with a recent trend of spirit manufactures stepping away from age statements with new products, like Laphroaig’s Quarter Cask and Ardbeg Alligator. The bottles are also distinctly different: Johnnie Walker Black Label comes in a clear bottle, while Double Black comes in slightly taller, smoked glass bottle.
In the glass, both Johnnie Walker Black Label and Double Black look almost identical, with Black Label perhaps just slightly more red.  Nosing Johnnie Walker Double Black next to Johnnie Walker Black, there are very clear and distinct differences.  The Johnnie Walker Black Label has a much sweeter nose than the Double Black. With Black Label you can clearly pick out the Cardhu, but with Double Black, the nose is more defined by its smokey and peaty quality which comes from Caol Ila. On both, the nose presents very well and balanced. Double Black doesn’t blow you away with its smokiness, and there’s still a nice bed of sweet cherry underneath with a slight suggestion of a floral note.
The entry for Double Black is really nice and smooth. The smoke from the nose is there but it’s perfectly balanced by nice round, sweet flavors including the cherry from the nose. This balance carries out perfectly through the midpalate, where both the smoke and sweet intensify.  At the end of the midpalate, Double Black picks up a little spice and the slightest bit of bite that carries through a nice medium-long finish which preserves the sweet, smoke, and spice notes.
Johnnie Walker Double Black manages to maintain the same kind of wonderful balance that we’ve come to know and love with Johnnie Walker Black Label, but it does so with a slightly different set of flavors. Whereas Black Label expresses the interplay between sweet and oak, Double Black expresses the interplay with smoke, sweet, and spice.  This is done at the same high level and with the same wonderful finesse that has made Black Label so successful. Johnnie Walker Double Black also makes the stronger and smokier notes typical of Islay scotches much more approachable to the blended scotch drinker.  Johnnie Walker has stated that Johnnie Walker Double Black is a limited release and when ‘stock runs out’, it’ll no longer be offered, but we expect Double Black to ultimately take its rightful place as a full fledged part of the Johnnie Walker line.

Whisky I've Drank - Grand Old Parr Aged 12 Years

By Richard Thomas 
Grand Old Parr is one of the key fixtures of the upper shelf in many a watering hole, supermarket, and liquor store in Europe, North America, South America, and Japan. My guess is that if a bar stocks 12 year old blended scotch, it will be one of two brands, if not both: Johnnie Walker Black and Grand Old Parr.
Yet for something so ubiquitous, hardly anyone knows anything about Grand Old Parr. Even people who drink it don’t actually seem to know much about who made it, what’s in it, or who it is named for. The brand doesn’t have a website, and other offerings, such as the 18 Year Old, are as rare and the main 12 Year Old is commonplace.
First, Grand Old Parr is named for Thomas Parr, a semi-legendary Englishman reputed to have lived for 152 years, from the late 15th to the mid-17th Centuries. “Old Parr” was certainly a real person, and undoubtedly lived for a very long time by the standards of the day, but stories of his century-and-a-half lifespan or fathering bastards at the age of 100 should be taken with a pinch of salt. His remains are in Westminster Abbey, so you can visit them on your next trip to London. The Grand Old Parr brand dates back to 1909.
Nowadays Grand Old Parr is owned by Diageo, the drinks conglomerate that owns the aforementioned Johnnie Walker, Cardhu, J&B, and a couple of dozen other blended and single malt brands. Little information is available on where the blend comes from, or how it might have changed over the years, but running down the Diageo list of distilleries will provide a good starting point for guessing what might be in it.
The Whiskey:
I usually don’t go for brown glass whiskey bottles, but Grand Old Parr’s is undeniably cool. It’s turtle-shell surface and squat, squared design come together with the labeling style to make it look like something straight out of a pirate flick. I can easily imagine Graham Chapman swinging into the rigging on the set of Yellowbeard guzzling from a bottle of Grand Old Parr… and if you believe the Parr legend, somehow that timing seems to fit. It is bottled at 43% abv.
In the glass, the scotch has a gold and slightly coppery appearance, suggestive of more body than the typical 12 year old blend. That point complements the 43% abv, which is also somewhat more than one expects from the typical blend of this type.
The nose is mellow and rich with musty oak, plus a generous helping of malty cereal, with notes of dried grass and sea breeze, and a little candied dried fruit. It’s rich and malty sweet on the palate, with some toffee and dried fruit flavoring, and a dash of spice. The finish is a long, lingering one, but only slightly warm and slightly peppery.
This stuff has a rich, full-bodied, but understated character to it. For a plainly mass market 12 year old blend, Grand Old Parr is actually a very pleasant and enjoyable scotch. If you haven’t tried it yet, do so. It’s easy to find, so there are no excuses.
The Price:
In the U.S., expect to pay around $30 to $35. Strangely, I’ve seen it priced more expensively in Europe, around €35, but that might be due to high local VATs.