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It's a finely crafted blend, almost too smooth and delicate. It's not really worth the price of admission. Johnnie Walker Green, Gold and Black Label are the best of the brand.
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May 31, 2016 14:38
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Black label is my jam.
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May 31, 2016 14:47
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Tangerines posted:Has anyone tried Johnnie Walker Blue Label? I've never actually seen a bottle of Johnnie Walker in the shops in the UK but recently saw a lot over in Cyprus. All seem to be blended whiskeys which makes me dubious of them from the get go. Blue Label seems to be outrageously priced.. It's quite tasty, definitely engineered for "smoothness", and ludicrously overpriced. Blue Label serves a purpose, it's just not aimed at anyone in this thread. I keep a bottle of Green Label around, but Black Label is reserved for hotel or airport bars.
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May 31, 2016 15:01
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good jovi posted:It's quite tasty, definitely engineered for "smoothness", and ludicrously overpriced. I'm favorably disposed towards Black Label (but not Double Black) but it's just a bit too boring. It is fairly easy to find in the wild if you're flying/travelling and it's a fine port in that kind of storm.
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May 31, 2016 16:20
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I made a quick road trip up to Speyside last weekend. Picked up a few beauties including a single cask Glendronach from an Oloroso puncheon that I've already had a good go at and the Balvenie Single Barrel 15, another sherried beauty. Perhaps the best was picking up 2 bottles of Oishii Wisukii that I'd paid for before it had actually been bottled, a 36 y/o blend that picked up some good reviews (it's absolutely lovely). https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/new-whiskies/9256/batch-41/#9250
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May 31, 2016 16:49
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Heads up to anyone in the UK - Glenlivet are discontinuing the 12 year in favour of their NAS founders reserve. If you have a Co-Op nearby they're clearance price is £25 for a 70cl. The Founders isn't that great so stocking up on the 12 may be worth pursuing if you're a fan.
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May 31, 2016 18:12
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Olpainless posted:Heads up to anyone in the UK - Glenlivet are discontinuing the 12 year in favour of their NAS founders reserve. If you have a Co-Op nearby they're clearance price is £25 for a 70cl. The Founders isn't that great so stocking up on the 12 may be worth pursuing if you're a fan. Agreed ^^ Glenlivet 12 is going to disappear everywhere except the US. If you like it, get it while you can as the Founders Reserve is not a patch on it.
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May 31, 2016 18:30
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Olpainless posted:Heads up to anyone in the UK - Glenlivet are discontinuing the 12 year in favour of their NAS founders reserve. If you have a Co-Op nearby they're clearance price is £25 for a 70cl. The Founders isn't that great so stocking up on the 12 may be worth pursuing if you're a fan. I will be checking this out on my way back from work today. Definitely like the 12. Shame to see it go.
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Jun 1, 2016 13:38
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This might be considered blasphemy, but it's summer and I'd like to sip on something whiskey-y and sweet. Does anyone have good recommendations for good whiskey-based fruit cocktails or fruit-infused whiskeys? I had a Huckleberry flavored whiskey that was an amazing thing to sip on after work, but was wondering if there were others like it that are of comparable quality.
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Jun 1, 2016 15:24
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GrandpaPants posted:This might be considered blasphemy, but it's summer and I'd like to sip on something whiskey-y and sweet. Does anyone have good recommendations for good whiskey-based fruit cocktails or fruit-infused whiskeys? I had a Huckleberry flavored whiskey that was an amazing thing to sip on after work, but was wondering if there were others like it that are of comparable quality. I haven't had much infused whiskey but when I was visiting Nashville I had Pennington's strawberry rye whiskey which wasn't to bad. Worth a taste if you are in the area.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:10
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GrandpaPants posted:This might be considered blasphemy, but it's summer and I'd like to sip on something whiskey-y and sweet. Does anyone have good recommendations for good whiskey-based fruit cocktails or fruit-infused whiskeys? I had a Huckleberry flavored whiskey that was an amazing thing to sip on after work, but was wondering if there were others like it that are of comparable quality. For refreshing summer cocktails, my go to drinks are whiskey sours or Irish whiskey with ginger beer & lime. Mint juleps are also good. emotive fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 18:08
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emotive posted:For refreshing summer cocktails, my go to drinks are whiskey sours or Irish whiskey with ginger beer & lime. Mint juleps are also good. don't forget the whiskey smash! one of my favorite summer drinks.
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Jun 1, 2016 18:15
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Rye and ginger ale/coke are basically drink staples. Whiskey sours are also delicious
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Jun 1, 2016 18:34
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I was given a bottle of Lagavulin for my birthday and it reminded me just how much I can't handle how good this stuff is favorite whisky
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Jun 2, 2016 00:40
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good jovi posted:It's quite tasty, definitely engineered for "smoothness", and ludicrously overpriced. FWIW I had a really good black label variant of some sort that was only availoable at the duty free shops and it was definitely better than the original. I'm still not sure it was worth the money.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:50
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GrandpaPants posted:This might be considered blasphemy, but it's summer and I'd like to sip on something whiskey-y and sweet. Does anyone have good recommendations for good whiskey-based fruit cocktails or fruit-infused whiskeys? I had a Huckleberry flavored whiskey that was an amazing thing to sip on after work, but was wondering if there were others like it that are of comparable quality. Squeeze half a small lemon in a highball glass and muddle with several mint leaves. Drop in a shot of high proof whiskey (Bookers is my go to) and a splash of simple syrup. Fill with crushed ice and stir. Top glass off with Topo Chico mineral water.
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Jun 2, 2016 01:35
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ChickenArise posted:FWIW I had a really good black label variant of some sort that was only availoable at the duty free shops and it was definitely better than the original. I'm still not sure it was worth the money. Might be the Double Black.
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Jun 2, 2016 06:11
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Double black is the only black label variant out there as far as I know. In my opinion it's not so much better as it's just different. It has more smoke and char and woody notes but it's also more one-dimensional lacking the depth of regular black.
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Jun 2, 2016 07:45
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I've never been a huge JW fan, still kind of want to try the Green and Gold, I just don't wanna buy a bottle and the only bars around here who would stock JW I don't trust to not serve me from an oxidized bottle. Can't do the little sampler thing you buy on the internet either because I live in Pennslyvania  Black isn't bad as in I wouldn't turn it down but I wouldn't buy it either. Blue as other people said is just too smooth to the point that it's not interesting to me. Super enjoyable but not remarkable. Glenmorangie 18 is also really smooth and more interesting in my opinion.
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Jun 2, 2016 16:05
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spankmeister posted:Double black is the only black label variant out there as far as I know. In my opinion it's not so much better as it's just different. It has more smoke and char and woody notes but it's also more one-dimensional lacking the depth of regular black. Looking at the label, I think that was it. My friends picked it up just to have something from the duty-free, so I got to benefit.
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Jun 2, 2016 16:40
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Shugojin posted:I've never been a huge JW fan, still kind of want to try the Green and Gold, I just don't wanna buy a bottle and the only bars around here who would stock JW I don't trust to not serve me from an oxidized bottle. Can't do the little sampler thing you buy on the internet either because I live in Pennslyvania JW green is a legit good whisky, I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to anyone.
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Jun 2, 2016 18:27
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I really liked the green. It's very spicy, I know that's not the word for it but I'm not sure what is. A lot of burn to it, but not cheap bourbon burn. Complex flavor. The gold is more mellow and light, maybe more of a Speyside flavor? I don't drink much scotch, so I might be wrong on that one.
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Jun 2, 2016 19:39
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I don't find Green Label to have any burn at all. It's just a heavier, peatier, more flavorful option than Gold Label mostly because it contains no grain whisky. Spicy is valid. Green Label contains a healthy portion. of Talisker, which is often identified as peppery.
TobinHatesYou fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jun 3, 2016 |
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Jun 3, 2016 03:37
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Black Grouse was on sale, $5 off, grabbed a bottle. Not bad for an inexpensive scotch but there is an underlying sourness. I don't hate it but I don't know that I would buy it again.
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Jun 3, 2016 04:01
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wormil posted:Black Grouse was on sale, $5 off, grabbed a bottle. Not bad for an inexpensive scotch but there is an underlying sourness. I don't hate it but I don't know that I would buy it again. I know what you mean and I suspect that comes from cask reconditioning.
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Jun 3, 2016 08:24
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kidsafe posted:I don't find Green Label to have any burn at all. It's just a heavier, peatier, more flavorful option than Gold Label mostly because it contains no grain whisky. Spicy is valid. Green Label contains a healthy portion. of Talisker, which is often identified as peppery. That could be it. I last drank it almost a year ago, so my memory is hazy. I kind of assumed there's no such thing as a spicy whisk(e)y outside of crap like fireball, so I must have associated it with burn. I'd drink it again, but didn't they axe it? I'd love to try scotch, but when $50 is either highland park or the best bourbon/rye you can find outside of Pappy, it's hard to justify the scotch.
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Jun 4, 2016 01:54
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22 Eargesplitten posted:
Wait what? Highland Park is great. Besides there are all kinds of other quality scotches at the $50 price point.
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Jun 4, 2016 17:05
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I'm sure Highland Park is great, but like I said, it's the cost of the nicest american whiskey you can reasonably get. Add to that I rarely even buy a $30 bottle because I'm a poor, and scotch just isn't something I'm likely to buy.
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Jun 4, 2016 18:29
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Uh, I can buy a bunch of quality single malts here for around $25. That's really not that much more than what I pay for a standard bottling of Buffalo Trace, Bulleit, etc. Now consider its been aged a few years longer than a standard bourbon, then shipped across an ocean and I think the price is reasonable. And that's before we get into the fact that single malts are more diversely flavored than bourbons. The use of new, charred Quercus Alba in bourbon is quite heavy handed. The wood spice, vanilla, tannins, dominate every bourbon. So much that the intrinsic quality of the distillate gets a bit lost in it all. Oh yeah, most bourbons are also column/coffey distilled...a much cheaper, higher volume process than pot distilling.
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Jun 4, 2016 20:14
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What part of the country is that? I feel like most single malts start at 50 everywhere I've been. That's pretty great.
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Jun 4, 2016 20:28
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California, but prices should be similar in any state that doesn't control liquor sales. If they aren't in the high $20 range, then they're in the low $30s. Ex: K&L has Glenfiddich 12 for $27 and Glenlivet 12 for $28. I'd check Beltramo's prices, but they are closing their store after more than 130 years of continuous operation and I am sad. California Costcos also sell booze.
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Jun 4, 2016 21:10
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kidsafe posted:California Costcos also sell booze. And in California, the law says that you can't be required to buy a membership to a store to buy booze, so you can buy booze at Costco even if you don't have a membership. Tell the door checker that you're just shopping for alcohol, and in you go.
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Jun 4, 2016 23:27
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I'd love to try scotch, but when $50 is either highland park or the best bourbon/rye you can find outside of Pappy, it's hard to justify the scotch. Try to find a tasting near you. For a reasonable price you'll get to try 5 or 6 whiskies and can make a judgement as to which style(s) you like.
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Jun 5, 2016 09:58
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kidsafe posted:Uh, I can buy a bunch of quality single malts here for around $25. That's really not that much more than what I pay for a standard bottling of Buffalo Trace, Bulleit, etc. Now consider its been aged a few years longer than a standard bourbon, then shipped across an ocean and I think the price is reasonable. Yeah, it's about $40 for a bottle of Glenlivet here, unless I'm remembering wrong. The cheapest decent bottle of scotch I got was a huge discount on Glenmorangie 10, which brought it down to $30. Your prices must be significantly cheaper. Maybe that comes with being able to have big chain liquor stores, our are all local small businesses. The only single malt you can get here at $25 is Speyburn. TBH, I've had Glenlivet and Glenfiddich. They're okay, but nothing really grabbed me about them. That's why I was more interested in Highland Park in particular, because the OP says it's a good introduction to peaty scotches. I'm not saying that the price is unreasonable (particularly shipping across the ocean, I expect that adds quite a bit of expense), but when it comes to whiskey at that price it's just not something attractive to me at this point. Scotch does have more of a range (or so I hear), but that doesn't mean all bourbon is the same. There are definitely some very obvious differences and significantly different mash bills among the 49% that doesn't have to be corn. And of course American whiskey also includes rye, which is its own little world. I'll see if my biggest local liquor store is having a whiskey tasting any time soon. They tend to mostly have wine tastings.
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Jun 5, 2016 20:25
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How quickly would you be able to identify Maker's, Four Roses Small Batch, Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey 101 in a blind taste test? How quickly would you be able to identify Highland Park, Old Pulteney, Macallan and Oban? The former would be much tougher to me.
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Jun 5, 2016 20:47
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On the recommendation of this thread I tried Balvenie Doublewood 12 and really like it. It's fruity and has an interesting lingering aftertaste I can't identify, maybe it's from the sherry cask? I couldn't taste any peat at all. I've also run out of Redbreast 12. While I like to try new things, I enjoyed it so much that I'll probably just get another bottle.
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Jun 5, 2016 22:56
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kidsafe posted:How quickly would you be able to identify Maker's, Four Roses Small Batch, Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey 101 in a blind taste test? How quickly would you be able to identify Highland Park, Old Pulteney, Macallan and Oban? The former would be much tougher to me. 22 Eargesplitten posted:Scotch does have more of a range (or so I hear), but that doesn't mean all bourbon is the same. There are definitely some very obvious differences and significantly different mash bills among the 49% that doesn't have to be corn. And of course American whiskey also includes rye, which is its own little world. The part you're (intentionally?) ignoring is that around here, all of those scotches are nearly twice the price or even over twice the price of any of those four. They are in Blantons or Bakers territory. I'll still answer your post, even though it was completely ignoring what my previous post had said. You neglected to put any rye in that lineup, and I would be able to pick Rittenhouse in an instant. I could also definitely tell 101 because 101 has distinctly more burn than any of them, Buffalo Trace because it's very sweet and smooth, and Four Roses I could probably get because it would taste similar to the single barrel I had, more complexity up front. I've never had Makers, but given that it's a wheated bourbon, I'd probably have a decent idea, and I could pick that one by process of elimination anyway. The scotch I would have no idea, because as I've been saying since yesterday, they are too expensive, and if I'm going to dump that kind of money on whiskey, I want to spend it on the best bourbon or rye I can find rather than good but still entry level scotch. Once I have more money, I'll probably start trying scotch, but so far I'd much rather get a good <$25 bottle of bourbon rather than the comparably priced Speyburn or Famous Grouse.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:09
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Why would price matter to the discussion I'm trying to have with you? You claimed that mashbills have a lot to do with bourbons having different traits. I claimed that new charred American white oak heavily influences the flavor profile of any distillate and puts those intrinsic differences in the background. Also why would I put a rye in there? I curated my list very carefully. Three are distinct Highland single malts. One, Highland Park, is an "island" single malt. I chose bourbons with varied levels of rye, from 0 to 10 to 15 to ~30%. I specifically chose a narrow range of single malts and bourbons with vastly different mashbills to illustrate my point.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:30
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Here's where I started:22 Eargesplitten posted:I'd love to try scotch, but when $50 is either highland park or the best bourbon/rye you can find outside of Pappy, it's hard to justify the scotch. Here's where you first posted: kidsafe posted:Uh, I can buy a bunch of quality single malts here for around $25. That's really not that much more than what I pay for a standard bottling of Buffalo Trace, Bulleit, etc. Now consider its been aged a few years longer than a standard bourbon, then shipped across an ocean and I think the price is reasonable. Then someone else said: Lowness 72 posted:What part of the country is that? I feel like most single malts start at 50 everywhere I've been. That's pretty great. and I said: 22 Eargesplitten posted:Yeah, it's about $40 for a bottle of Glenlivet here, unless I'm remembering wrong. The cheapest decent bottle of scotch I got was a huge discount on Glenmorangie 10, which brought it down to $30. So that's where most of the discussion was, on how scotch is just a lot more expensive than American whiskey in general. I did agree that scotch presumably has a wider range of flavors. I know just going from the Johnny Walker sampler I had, there's a huge range there between black, green, gold, and blue. But like I also said, I can absolutely tell between bourbons because of all of the variables overwhelming the constant of the barrels. And I also absolutely love bourbon in general, so I'm not put off by the similarities. I will admit I said bourbon when I meant American whiskey in general, including rye. That's a slip I frequently make.
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Jun 6, 2016 00:09
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kidsafe posted:How quickly would you be able to identify Maker's, Four Roses Small Batch, Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey 101 in a blind taste test? How quickly would you be able to identify Highland Park, Old Pulteney, Macallan and Oban? The former would be much tougher to me. So what? Kool aid would do well in a blind taste test, if that is your only criteria.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:15
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