Johnnie Walker Red Label
Blended Scotch Whisky | 40% ABV
Finding Enjoyment In Disappointment
Would you bear with me for a moment? Once half of you are done laughing and the other half have lowered their torches and pitchforks, let me try to tie the score, TL;DR and title together.
Over almost three years of Dramface reviews, we've covered the Johnnie Walker 15-year-old Green Label and the Black Label 12-year-old, twice actually. I thought it was about time we tackled their most ubiquitous; the Johnnie Walker Red Label.
About a month ago, on a dreary December day, I was running an errand to get some food and household items. This meant I had to do something I usually avoid: walk into the XL supermarket that is attached to a non-food discount store from a big chain that shall remain nameless. You know the sort though; one of those extraordinarily lit-by-a-million-TL-lamps, soulless stores in which the light in the eyes of the behind-the-counter teenage staff grows dim until extinguished. For forever, I imagine. Or at least until it’s 5pm.
I walked out with a microwave meal, some clothes pegs, a ball of string, a wooden spoon, and a new window wiper, all for the grand total sum of € 8,04.
Washing over me came that feeling you sometimes get when you realise that the things you’ve bought can’t possibly cost only that much in total. That feeling which tells you that somewhere along the line, either in ingredients, raw materials, or manufacturing, corners have been cut that shouldn’t have been cut, and that somehow you’ll pay for it in another way. Either by ingesting a diabolical amount of preservatives and flavourings after heating and eating that meal, or by one of those clothes pegs disintegrating at the first pinch and shooting one of its halves into your left eyeball. I felt that slight remorse of buying the wares from one corporate conglomerate; totally unaware that I was about to be seduced by another.
You see, that big building also houses a brick and mortar liquor store chain shop. I decided to walk in and see what was on the shelves, just for excrements and giggles. Those shelves were littered with ubiquitous offerings from Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, Jack Daniels, Famous Grouse, Bowmore and consorts. All bottles that have their purpose, their audience and fans, but not the type of bottles I usually go for. Since you’re browsing this website, I imagine you tend to let your gaze focus on other things as well. And yet, I found myself reminiscing and grinning gratefully at a few of those labels. I recognised them as some of my earliest experiences from starting to climb this never-ending stairway to heaven less than five years ago.
And there it was, staring me right in the face. At eye level. Nestled between all of its colourful, diagonally labelled brothers and sisters: Johnnie Walker’s Red Label. In a wee 20cl bottle. I stared at it for just a second too long and started thinking; what does this taste like again? I once had a bottle of Black Label 12-year-old when I was starting out and trying some standard offerings to get my bearings. I also had a dram or two of this Red, I’m sure.
I know that for many people it serves as a vivid memory of their first whisky mixer-induced projectile vomiting session after a night out in their student days. Luckily I didn’t have the same experience. I think I was just gifted a miniature bottle of this once. I had totally forgotten about it.
I know it’s the butt of many a joke in the whisky community. I know that even people who like to drink Johnnie Walker’s blends will tell others that anything cheaper than the Black Label isn’t worth trying and that this Red Label is made for mixing with Coca Cola. And anyway, because I’m someone who likes to stuff his shelves with what we might call ‘integrity bottlings’ - and also as someone who gets giddy at the words ‘independent’ and ‘bottler’ - there was absolutely no reason for me to buy this.
But it looked quite cute in its 20cl guise. It was only € 7,69. And I had a crisp tenner in my wallet. And so I decided to buy it; and do my little bit in helping the Diageo board of directors save up for their replacement Bentleys when the ashtrays are full in their current ones. The cashier gave me a slightly inquiring look. Probably because he had never seen anyone ponder for so long over a bottle of Johnnie Walker.
I suspect all of this might sound snobbish or denigrating but I don’t mean it to. I’ll say it again: something in me is a little charmed by this whisky. I have my reasons. So let me explain why I don’t entirely detest this humble little bottle.
Despite the score.
Review
Johnnie Walker Red Label, blended Scotch Whisky, 20cl official bottling, 40% ABV
€7,69 paid (£5.50) for 20cl, literally available everywhere
After I tried a couple of pours to reconnect with the forgotten flavours, and to give me some reference, I felt like I had this dram figured out. That’s because there isn’t much to figure out. It’s totally flat; lightly whisky-flavoured alcohol water. The distilled equivalent of a eunuch. So I decided to use this whisky the way it was intended. I decided to use it as a mixer.
I poured it next to a dram of Ardbeg 10 and began to add generous drops of the Ardbeg, which didn’t suddenly make it a great dram, but it did turn it into a careful, savoury, peaty, floral experience. Then I poured some and added a teaspoon of cask strength Glenallachie 10; only to find it took over nothing but the sulphur notes and a hint of red berries from that, which was terribly interesting.
I blended it 50/50 with some Ardnamurchan AD/ (sorry, Mr. Crystal) which made the pebble-beach mineral element of that Ardnamurchan stand out for a bit, before turning more than a bit funky, in a bad way. Not tasty, but interesting to nose and try for sure!
And at the risk of all of you raising pitchforks at the mere thought of the blasphemy I’m confessing to, I sacrificed some of my venerable Springbank 10 in the pursuit of blending up and experimenting with this Red Label. You can deliver the tar and feather and ancient pagan curses aimed at me in the comment section. Thank you. That one turned out quite bitter and a bit angry and jagged, which I didn’t expect at all.
Here’s the thing. I am a bit over four years in on my whisky journey and I have dabbled around with adding a bit of one whisky to a bit of another one to see what happens. I often find myself tinkering with my Islay Infinity Bottle (more often than not a slight disappointment) and my Sherry Monster Infinity Bottle (accidentally brilliant, but only by dumb luck). I tend to try and blend good stuff with other good stuff. So why am I enthusiastic about trying to polish this particular turd?
Simple. I don’t care about it.
I don’t care if I mess up a dram of this and it goes to waste. Not at that price. There is nothing precious about this liquid and because it’s so undeserving, diluted, boring and forgettable, to the point of it barely being whisky, it only takes a few drops or maybe a teaspoon of some of the good, higher strength stuff, to elevate it so far beyond its original state that it becomes somewhat enjoyable and most of all - an educational experience. It doesn’t have to be a successful experiment. I quite enjoyed how differently weird the results were.
Let’s say someone were to gift you a bottle of this and you immediately started to think about ways to get rid of it. You could use it as a paint stripper, or to clean your bicycle chain, even though you really want to pour it into the petrol tank of your neighbour’s lawnmower that he insists on using at 7:30am on Sundays. I get it. But you might have a lot of open bottles of whisky. You can easily create a bottle’s worth of varieties of this whisky that will each teach you about texture, flavours, and the range of influences that different characters of malt have on one (bad) whisky. Go nuts; experiment. Let out your inner Dr. Frankenstein, why don’t you? It’ll be fun in a weird way.
And I know what you’re thinking: I could use a Glenfiddich 12yo, Glenmorangie 10yo, or even a Glencadam 10yo for that. Those are far better to begin with and so the results will be better as well. You’d be right, but those bottles are usually priced in between 35 and 50 Euros in these parts and, since I’m on a budget, I’d feel a lot more hesitant to sacrifice too many drams at that entry price.
Anyway, I should probably also tell you what it’s like on its own.
Nose
Windex. I’m not saying that to be mean.
It’s truly like a chemist’s idea of what sugar, anise and an odd flower should smell like if he had to add that to a cleaning product. Got that in your mind? Good; then dilute that until barely there. A hint of chemical sweetener as well. Pulling the lid off a Tupperware container after it’s been in the cupboard for a long time. Cheap, plastic toys that have been out in the sun. In all honesty, if someone poured this for me blind, I don’t think I’d identify it as whisky.
Palate
The saccharine-chemical note from the nose carries through on the palate. It tastes like faint, whisky flavoured vodka. What little finish there is, is a weirdly rank metallic note. If you have ever had a slot car race track as a kid and licked the magnetic underbody of one of those cars you’ll know what it tastes like. Don’t ask me why I did.
On its own it’s just utterly useless.
The Dregs
Look, this bottle is whisky in the same way that a tin of Spam is meat. More or less identifiable as such, but that is where the similarities end.
It’s maybe the most disappointing, flat, watery, chemical-tasting whisky I’ve tried to this day and as enthusiasts we could make the case that it should not exist. And yet I enjoyed the experimental concoctions I made while playing around with this. And if you stumbled upon this review after trying your first sips of this stuff neat at a party and feeling a spark of whisky curiosity flowing through your system, because you kind of enjoyed it; good! Great, even!
Don’t let my hyperbolic swings at the mother company put you off of your experience. If this got you wanting to explore more, come in and pull up a chair. Your mind will be blown by every next step you take in this wonderful Whiskyverse of flavour discovery.
Score: 2/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MM
Other opinions on this:
Ralfy (comparison video)
Whiskybase
Got a link to a reliable review? Tell us.