Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 Years Old Scotch Whisky

So there's the idea that single malts are so much better than blended scotches. The snobs and the established single malt producers want you to believe this because it drives their sales and it drives the higher prices for single malts over blended scotches, but we've heard some convincing arguments against it. Unfortunately these convincing arguments may be with more of a UK scotch market in mind. The blended scotches that we get here in Canada are generally the more bargain brands, the blends that lack the complexity that a really good blend could have, so this reinforces the idea that blends are bad.

We've tried to open up our minds and accept the idea that blends could be good. We really have. Although, from experience there is some lingering doubt.

With this in mind, however, we dove right into Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 Years Old Scotch Whisky.

To be honest, I had always bought into the idea that single malts are better than blends, and when I bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label recently, I was kind of embarrassed. I felt a little bit of shame that someone thought I was buying this because I thought it was good... I was just buying it because I thought I should taste it and prove to myself that it was bad. It's actually not bad, but it's not good. It brands itself as a scotch to mix with cola or something like that. If you're looking for a good scotch to drink with a bit of water, or straight... you need to look beyond red label. Even Johnnie Walker agrees with that.

But Red Label is pretty inexpensive. I decided to try Black Label with an open mind. Perhaps, I thought, it might be pretty good. It's branded well. It was in an episode of True Detective as a premium scotch....

However, it's not. It's pretty boring and although it's not as expensive as something like Glenlivet or Genfiddich it's still not worth the extra money. There are better scotches that are the same price or less. If you don't want to spent more just buy something like J&B. You're not getting that much better of scotch for your money.

There's no review here of Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 Years Old Scotch Whisky. It's a little Smokey and fairly boring. Buy something else. My recommendation is to avoid this. It's not shit, but you can do better. I don't see myself ever buying this again.

So the search for a good premium blended scotch continues.