I've said this before, but not everything I recommend needs to be a showstopper. I mean, I like going to high-end steakhouses, but if I eat at a good hamburger stand, I'm still going to tell a friend about it.
Similarly, I'll watch a flawed action movie with a dicey premise so long as someone’s ass gets kicked in a way that I’ll find memorable. I drive a sports car I quite enjoy, but let me tell you: if my car's in the shop, I can find a lot to like with even a Toyota Yaris when it takes me to where I want to go.
You might guess where I'm going with Johnnie Walker Black Label. It's one of the most well-known scotches on the planet Earth, which means you can find it just about anywhere. It's stocked in every restaurant bar, you can add it to your cart at the grocery store, they'll serve it to you on an airplane—hell, I even bought some once at a natural history museum.
“Johnnie Walker Black is a perfectly serviceable scotch that offers a little bit of sweetness with a little bit of smoke, and finishes easy with lingering peat.”
Now, I'm pretty much of the opinion that when something gets to be everywhere, it's for one of two reasons. The first is one part comfort, one part mass delusion. It’s the only way I can explain why so many people are at any given Starbucks coffee, or how it is that Foo Fighters ever became a multi-platinum band. These are the things I never mind throwing shade at. I'm convinced they're big news simply because people aren't familiar with anything better.
On the other hand, things get huge because there's something of substance to be found. The Honda Civic has for years been a car that delivers an outstanding dollars-to-quality ratio. Everyone has an iPhone because it works and has been assiduously designed. And even in the world of liquor, a gin like Tanqueray becomes all the more impressive in its boldness when you realize just how big of a brand it is.
Thankfully, Johnnie Walker Black Label falls into that latter category of things that are everywhere because they're good. There are better scotches, absolutely. There are even better deals. But if you find yourself at a grocery store with $25, there's just about nothing that can touch it.
First, let's talk about the fact that JW Black is an age-stated scotch. It's blended, consisting of both grain whisky and several single malt whiskys. Grain whisky on its own has a reputation for being sour and astringent—a reputation it comes by honestly when you drink the young, cheap shit. Try some Seagram's 7 on its own some time and see if it doesn't put an immediate frown on your face.
Age grain whisky, however, and it becomes sweet and buttery. At twelve years, it sheds most of the yucky traits people associate it with, and is probably one of the major reasons why JW Black tends to be fairly-well regarded even by veteran boozehounds while most people would kick the (much younger) Johnnie Red Label to the curb.
The other thing to know about JW Black is that it's peated, which means that, yes, this is the smokey kind of scotch that's archetypal of what most people are expecting when they drink a scotch. What makes JW Black pretty interesting, and the reason behind why I think it's so popular, is that the grain whisky tempers the peat of the single malts. It's smokey, sure, but only enough that a novice gets to take the ride without feeling overwhelmed.
The good news: this is a comfortable scotch. It's an ideal beverage to nurse as you mingle at some social function or work on a crossword puzzle 20,000 feet in the air. Even in the midst of this review, I forgot I was supposed to be paying attention to the whisky. It offers a little bit of sweetness with a little bit of smoke, and finishes easy with, again, just a wisp of peat that lingers. I'm fine with this stuff.
Now, if you do start paying close attention to it, you’ll detect where it doesn't quite hang with the big boys. The nose is pretty iodine heavy (not uncommon with peaty scotches), but also has some weird aromas of grilled onion. Taste-wise, the flipside to being comfortable is that the arrival is pretty thin, and you won't get too much on the development besides vague sweetness and gentle smoke. And, if you really set out to look for it, you might still find some grain sourness on the back half of the finish.
It helps not to think about it all too much—I mean, the irony of coming to that conclusion after so many words written in an attempt to be critical and thoughtful about the stuff—but it's true. If you can temper your expectations and you're looking for a sweet-and-smokey scotch that will be perfect for having friends over or watching something like Photoshop tutorials on Youtube, it's hard to go wrong here.
And hey, even if you're a hater, consider this: Johnnie Black is most people's first foray into peated whiskey. It's affordable enough that people can impulse buy it to develop their palate without feeling like they got suckered. Like a friend once told me about Porsche, “Building that ugly SUV is what's allowing them to continue to make race cars.” More of the good stuff for you.
I, however, choose to celebrate that the Johnnie Walker brand hit it out of the park. There's a lot of other things I like more than Johnnie Black, and I'd be remiss not to mention the similar Dewar's 12, which always tends to over-deliver. That said, whenever I spend my hard-earned money on Black Label, it's always in a context where I'm delighted to have it as an option. To me, that's saying a lot.
