Having already reviewed Johnnie Walker Black Label (where you’ll also find a bit of distiller history) and Green Label, both of which are fairly well-priced whiskies, I thought it about time to check out one of their slightly more expensive blends – the Gold Label, ooh! Very fancy name indeed, but does the whisky live up to it? And more importantly, is it worth the extra £20 on top of the Green Label – or £30 on Black? Let’s find out.
Johnnie Walker is without doubt one of the most well-known whisky blends in the world, and for good reason; their whiskies never fail to offer not only good value for money, but indeed high quality regardless of price. For those of you who like to read a bit of distillery history with your review, I would recommend that you check out my review of the Johnnie Walker Black Label as I have presented what I could find there.
Ballantine’s started out as a grocers in Edinburgh back in 1827, and began blending Scotch whisky in 1869. Since then it has grown to become one of the biggest Scotch brands in the world, and outsells any other brand in Europe.
The blend is made from over 50 assorted Scotch malts including Miltonduff and Glenburgie, so I probably don’t need to tell you that their Master Blender, Sandy Hyslop, has quite the nose on him! When it comes to blended Scotch whiskies, Ballantine’s is pretty hard to beat, and the 17 year old which I’m taking a look at today is no exception.
When it comes to American whiskey I’ve generally got nothing against a modern looking bottle, I even quite like a bit of innovation. Put a modern looking bottle of Scottish whisky in front of me, however, and I’m bound to put my nose up. I don’t know why that is, really, though as a marketing scholar I guess it may have a little something-something to do with my associations with the respective countries. I see Scotland as traditional and whisky as quintessentially Scottish, and as such I prefer a traditional, old-time design.
And the prize for the least creative name of a “scotch” blend goes to… MacScot’s, which I heard of for the first time the other day. Apparently it is a blend produced in Sweden, yet I have been fortunate enough to try it. Scandinavia is pretty well known for having high taxes, especially on alcohol, which makes everything rather more expensive than one might like. MacScot’s saw a bit of a gap in the market for cheap whisky, and decided to roll out their own low-budget blend, priced at a reasonable £20(ish) for a 70cl bottle.
As I’m not the biggest drinker of blended malts in the world, I’ve only really had a select few and out of them I only like half a handful. To cut a long story short, I thought it was about time I added another expression to my list of blends that have had the pleasure of ending up in my belly. As I didn’t really have one in mind when I hit the shops I picked up the first one to tickle my fancy, which just so happened to be Cutty Sark.
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