Tag: Johnnie Walker

Whiskey Wednesday: Hitting Johnnie Green’s Stride

Johnnie Walker is a striding behemoth, straddling the world as the number one selling Scotch whisky brand. It’s so popular that “What makes Johnnie Walker Blue the best?” is a Google search autocomplete. It’s so popular that due to knockoffs and literal bootlegs there are more bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label sold in India every year than are actually produced for the entire world.

            With this level of popularity the level of disdain and outright backlash for Johnnie Walker that abounds is almost inevitable. Something so popular could never actually be good. Yet, amongst its vast palette of labels there abides a quality and constancy that’s earned its place on back bars across the globe. It also contains one of my all time favorite colors and bottles: Green.

            Johnnie Walker, the Scotch Whisky, began its long walk in the 1819 when the father of John Walker, the actual Scotsman, died. The family sold their farm and invested in a grocery in Kilmarnock, Scotland in 1820. Grocery stores were a different breed in the 1800’s and many grocers would make their own house blends of whisky. This became much more prominent after the Excise Act of 1823 deregulated many of the laws on the distillation of whisky and more importantly greatly reduced the taxes on distilling and selling. In short order the teetotaling John Walker was selling his own blended malt whisky called Walker’s Kilmarnock Whisky. John passed away in 1857 leaving the company to his son Alexander Walker who would usher in the beginnings of the company’s global dominance.

This rise in popularity began with another act completely outside of Alexander’s control, the Spirit Act of 1860. For the first time it was now legal to blend malt and grain whiskies together, thus creating the blended whisky style that is the core of Johnnie Walker, as well as the vast majority of worldwide Scotch sales.

Alexander also took advantage of the newly arrived railroad to make connections with shipping captains to create a larger distribution network. This expanded shipping reach combined with a more approachable, lighter style of Scotch whisky literally made inroads with new drinkers.

            The increase in global shipping also led to the development of the iconic square bottle in 1860. The square shape allowed more bottles to fit in the standard shipping containers as well as greatly reduced breakage during transit. Alexander was also responsible for tilting the label at its jaunty angle across the bottle allowing for larger print as well as making the bottle more recognizable from a distance.

            It was the Third Generation of Walkers that added the final touch with a rebranding in 1909 that first saw the “Striding Man” added to the labels. They also had the companies three blended whiskies officially renamed to White Label, Red Label, and Black Label. The White Label was dropped during World War I but the Red and Black remain the core of Johnnie Walker to this day.

            With demand for Johnnie Walker Scotch spread across 120 countries the company began purchasing single malt distilleries to ensure  consistent supply and blends.  Beginning with Cardhu in 1893, they followed it up with the Coleburn Distillery, The Clynish Distillery and Talisker, before capping it off with the legendary Mortlach Distillery in 1923. Then in 1925 the company joined Distiller’s Company, which was purchased by Guinness in 1986, which then merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo, the largest liquor conglomerate in the world. 1997 is also an important year because it marks the reintroduction of Blended Malt Whisky to the Johnnie line up. Originally called Johnnie Walker Pure Malt my favorite bottle received its chromatic designation as Green Label in 2004.

            In a lot of ways the Green Label is a return to that very first John Walker blend. Being a blended malt it is comprised of completely single malt whiskies, which means none of the grain whisky that Alexander introduced and the helped spread the brand across the globe. Diageo is vague on the specific details, listing it as a blend of malts from the Speyside, Highland, Lowland, and Scottish Isle malts which is essentially saying it’s made up of Scotch from Scotland. But digging deeper you can find the names Cragganmore, Linkwood, Caol Ila and Talisker as the primary malts. It also carries a 15 year age statement, meaning the minimum age of every malt in the blend is at least 15 years old, making it one of the oldest constantly available Johnnie Walker blends.

            In a lot of ways this blend is at the root of Johnnie Walker’s history which is why it’s so surprising to me that it’s always felt like the redheaded stepchild of the family. It was “discontinued” in the Western markets around 2012 with plans to focus the brand in Asia. A massive shift in Chinese regulations brought the brand back globally in 2016. Yet it is still often passed over, ironically, because it isn’t as ubiquitous as the Black and Blue.

            Or maybe it’s a victim of Johnnie’s success. The sun never sets on the empire of Johnnie Walker yet it is an empire built on that addition of grain whisky to its single malt base. It’s a lighter style with more mellow flavor and the Green is rich and almost overly opulent in comparison. Someone who enjoys Black label might not find the Green to be their cup of tea. On the flip side the type of drinker that would truly love an aged-stated, blended malt is probably also the kind to turn up their noses at the mere mention of Johnnie’s name.

            Or maybe it’s that people still don’t truly understand what a blended malt is. It’s a misunderstood style just like Green Label is a misunderstood bottle. But the fact that it is so misunderstood and overlooked just makes it all the more endearing to me. I’ll gladly quaff a dram when I can find it.

NOSE: A light touch of seaside smoke, vanilla, dry oak and baking spices

PALETTE: Decadent and rich. Raisins, dried plums with a touch of that seaside air and a whiff of sherry. Slightly nutty, with a bright mid palette.

FINISH: A relatively quick, clean finish that leaves a lighter impression that the rest of the experience. It ends with lingering oaky sweetness mixed with a hint of smoke.

Whiskey Wednesday: Compass Box Directions

1 Comment

There are things that I love and there are things that I intellectually love. There’s a Venn Diagram where these two worlds merge but the edges are blurry and unscientific. Compass Box falls squarely in the grey area of these circles.

Over the past 17 years Compass Box has certainly marketed themselves as the hip, bad boys of the Scotch world while simultaneously pushing for greater education, transparency, and innovation in the category. As in so many things these days, the nerds have become the cool kids.

Founded in 2000 by former Johnie Walker marketing director and fellow American, John Glasser, Compass Box labels themselves as ‘whiskymakers’ a term the fully admit they made up. To them a whiskymaker is someone who “feels a need and an obligation to make things better – to ask questions, to challenge, to experiment.” In a traditional sense what they are is a blending house, not dissimilar to Johnnie Walker. They source whisky, both grain and single malt, from various distilleries throughout Scotland and then blend them together to create something, hopefully, unique and larger than the sum of its parts. Where Compass Box excels though is putting their own spin on the process. However, this personal spin often causes friction with the Scotch powers that be.

In 2005 they were forced to discontinue one of their “Signature Range” blends, the Oak Cross because of the aging process used to create it. Compass box was aging the blend with flat, French Oak staves placed inside the barrel to produce a different flavor, not dissimilar to what Maker’s Mark is doing with Maker’s 46. The Scotch Whisky Association, the trade organization that functions as the defacto Scotch whisky government, felt that this aging process

violated the Scotch Whisky Regulations and in the face of legal action the Spice Tree was discontinued. It was later revived by aging the blend in barrels that had be recoopered to included French Oak barrel heads, instead of barrel inserts. This helped give them an early reputation for innovation, and for standing up to the traditional, closed of Scotch makers.

getimage.jpg

This reputation was solidified in 2015 when they locked horns with the ScotchWhisky Association again, this time over transparency.  Compass Box had been shipping informational cards with their blends fully disclosing the source, style, age, and percentages of all of the component whiskies for their blends. The SWA felt that this violated both UK and EU laws, which state that a whisky may only list the age of the youngest whisky in the blend no matter the proportions. According to the SWA if you add a cupful of three year old whisky to a barrel of 50 year old whisky you now must label that as a three year old whisky. This is why blends like Johnnie Walker Blue will hint that there is 30 year old whisky in the bottle but you’ll never find that number actually on the packaging. Compass Box and John Glasser said, that fine will call it three year old whisky but drinkers want transparency and we want to be able to tell them exactly what makes up our bottle.

In another compromise, Compass Box has backed down from mailing out these images.jpginserts, but still makes them available online and they started the Scotch Whisky Transparency Campaign, which outlines their goals and what exactly they would like to see changed in the regulations.

None of this would be possible with out the whisky though. And John Glasser and Compass Box are excellent blenders. Take the Compass Box Asyla from their Signature Range. “Asyla” is plural for asylum and is a blended whisky, comprised of both grain and malt whiskey. Specifically, 50% Grain Whisky from Cameron bridge aged in first fill bourbon barrels, 5 % Malt whisky from Glen Elgin aged in refill hogshead, 23% malt from Teaninich aged in first fill American and 22% malt from Linkwood aged in First Fill American. Can you see how much the nerd it me loves having that information to pick apart?! The final product ends up leading with a light vanilla fruit from the predominant grain whisky with a floral, grassy, and stone fruit character added from the supporting malts. It’s an immensely approachable everyday whisky that I personally recommend for drinkers of Johnnie Walker almost every time I’m behind the bar and I have been for years. That’s part of the problem though, as I see it at least.

Despite years of bartenders recommending the product, and the whisky nerds geeking out I don’t know who’s actually drinking the whiskey. I can’t recall anyone ever calling for it by name. I often wonder if I’ve bought into what amounts to a marketing gimmick of transparency and rebel attitude. It comes into starker focus when you look at their limited releases. They’re clearly thumbing their noses at the SWA with their “Three Year Extravaganza” release which feature less than 1% of a three year old whisky blended into a malt whisky of “undisclosed age” and their recent “Double Single” flips the traditional blenders script of including only a single rain whisky and a single malt whisky blended together. They’re interesting experiments, and clearly push at limitations but it still feels like they’re exploiting the system.

Compass-Box-Header.jpg

They get to be the white night. Championing for greater transparency and new regulations while a vat amount of the whiskies for their blends from Diageo, the largest liquor conglomerate in the world who has a vested interest in the status quo. Brag to your customers that you’re fighting for their interests, knowing that it’ll probably never happen, and then thumb your nose at the establishment with cheeky releases while charging establishment specialty prices.

But none of this takes away from the fact that I genuinely enjoy their blends. But I’m still not sure where they fall on the Venn Diagram. Because when there’s so much to be said about a whisky company and a mere 5% of it is about the actual liquid in the bottle maybe that’s why I don’t experience calls for specific Compass Box whiskies. Maybe we’re having the wrong conversation.