The Whisky Advent Calendar - Plan to Give it

 

 

This was my most excellent early Christmas present from my wife. Why am I only reviewing it now?

I had to finish it first. With parties and travel, I didn't get through all 24 days until after Christmas.

I'll jump right to the heart of the matter: when you plunk down your $247 + shipping (and they do ship to the US) for the Whisky Advent Calendar, do you get gift value commensurate to your coin?

My answer, is yes. I got 24 days of whisky discovery, a chance to sample products from more than 20 distilleries in 5 countries. The selection was mostly single malt scotch (13 of the 24 days) with the balance filled in with, blended scotches (3), bourbons (3), American malt whisky (1, from Texas), Japanese malt whisky (1 single, 1 blend), a Swedish single malt, and an Irish single malt.

There were no bad drams. There were some that I didn't enjoy as much as the others, but that's going to be the case in any sampler package.

There were also some amazing whiskies in there. I'm now plotting to get ahold of a bottle of Glencadam - the 30ml sample of the 21-year-old in the calendar seduced my taste buds with amazingly complex flavors. And finishing the 2013 edition off with a dram of 40-year-old Glenfarclas was a master stroke - now I have another entry on my "List of things to buy when I win the lottery."

So, if you're looking for a gift for a whisky fancier that will put a smile on their face for most of the month of December, start saving your pennies now for the 2014 Edition of the Whisky Advent Calendar.

I'll also point out that Masters of Malt also offers several other boozy advent calendars: the Premium Whisky ( just north of $400) made of rarer drams, two variations of GInvent Calendars for the gin enthusiast, and a Rum Advent Calendar for the pirate in your life.

The Dimple Pinch - Cool Bottle, Decent Whisky

 

The triangular bottle is one of the most distinctive shapes on the liquor store shelf. Filled with 15 year-old whisky and wrapped in gold netting, it practically screams out: "I'm unique, I'm cool, I'm premium!"

So, the Dimple Pinch bottle, actually patented in the US in 1958, is a master stroke of marketing. Does the blended scotch whisky inside match up?

The short answer is: maybe. It depends on how much you pay for it.

I've never seen such price variation in a whisky before. Checking online, I found prices ranging from $22 for a 750ml triangle, to $47 for that same bottle. It's $43 on the North Carolina ABC store shelves where I live.

At the high end of the price range, you can get better for your money. If you like the Dimple (as it's known outside the US), a bottle of the Auchentoshan Classic single malt will only set you back $30 - $35, and it has a very similar flavor profile. Cragganmore and Dalwhinnie are also on the light site of single malts, and run about $45 - $50 a bottle  and offer substantially more character.

On the other hand, if you're fortunate enough to live in a place where you can obtain Dimple for $22 a bottle, then it's a right good deal and well worth the price.

Dimple is a blended scotch, in this case the product of more than 30 different malt and grain whiskies, blended together in whatever proportions are needed to achieve the signature Dimple taste. Everything in the bottle spent at least 15 years in a wooden cask.

Unlike Johnny Walker Black, Dimple is not a frankenscotch that tries cover all the things a scotch can be. It's blended to offer a much more restricted palette of flavors and true mass market appeal.

Dimple is sweet, medium bodied whisky. Bottled at 80 proof (40% abv), it sips smoothly straight out of the bottle. I don't pick up much of a nose, a little oak, a little honey, a little alcohol. Nothing that really stands out.

Flavorwise, Dimple is sweet, with honey fading to hint of oak and alcohol, and then away completely - it's a short finish. The mingling of the 30 plus component whiskies smooths off almost all the rough edges, and there are none of the peat or smoke flavors that so divide folks into love it or hate it camps. Adding water doesn't make the flavors bloom like it does with other whiskies, it just thins the honey notes a bit and cuts alcohol burn part of the finish down even some.

This makes it a perfect social whisky for the bar. You can offer it to all sorts of people, secure that you're not giving anyone something so strongly flavored that they hate it, and yet good enough to make them feel as if they had been given something premium. The distinctive bottle shape will only reinforce that impression. In a party atmosphere, it goes quickly, as I can attest.

Of course, you can get the same effect with a bottle of Auchentoshan Classic, and play the single malt snob appeal card at the same time. You just don't end up with a cool triangular bottle that your crafty and artist friends will bug you for.

(Addendum - I finished my bottle as I was writing this review. Unless I can find a place selling it for $25 or less, I have no intention of replacing it.)

Johnny Walker Black Label - The Safe Haven

Johnny Walker Black Label is a 12-year-old blended Scotch. So what does that mean?

For starters, it means all the constituent whiskies have spent at least 12 years aging in wooden barrels, most likely oak. Since it's blended, it means that the whisky in the bottle is a mix of the products of many different  distilleries (several places online claim that about 40 whiskies go into the making of Black Label) .

And finally, since it doesn't advertise itself as a pure malt whisky, it means that whisky made from other grains, such as wheat, corn or rye are involved in the blend as well.

There are two reasons to blend whiskies like this:

• To create rich, complex whisky based on the interplay of flavors;


• To cut costs (usually the reason for the addition of non barley malt whiskies).

Blended scotch has gotten a bad rap among single malt fanciers, because all cheap scotch is blended, and makes liberal use of the non-barley grains. And cheap scotch is generally really bad scotch.

However, blended scotch doesn't have to be wretched. A talented master distiller can mix up a tasty, complex dram using the interplay of flavors from various distilleries as point, counterpoint, highlight and base.

In fact, if you're not buying single barrel whisky, your bottle of single malt (or bourbon or rye) is a blend  of various barrels from that distillery's warehouses, chosen and mixed by the master distiller to produce the consistent signature flavor of that expression. Otherwise, given that different barrels at different places in the warehouse age differently, as well as the effects of weather on the aging process, the final product would be wildly inconsistent.

So, where does Johnny Walker Black Label fall on the crap-to-gold continuum  of blended scotch?

For me, it's definitely drinkable straight, unlike its younger brother, Red Label. That immediately elevates well above most blended scotch.

Black Label is bottled at 80 proof (40% abv), which means it's slightly more watered down from cask strength than most single malts, which are generally bottled at 86 proof ( 43% abv). Even so, I prefer to drink it with a splash of water to open up the flavors.

The nose doesn't give me much, a little sugar, a little oak. It's got decent weight on the tongue, even with the water.

Flavor-wise, there's some honey, some peat, some oak. Black Label has a moderately long finish, with hints of oak and peat and caramel late in the game.

If you sense a lack of wild enthusiasm there, you'd be correct. Black Label is decent enough, and it has the advantage of being almost ubiquitous world-wide. That makes it sort of a safe haven for a scotch drinker - a tolerable dram you can find almost anywhere you end up.

What it does not do for me, is excite me. The flavor is muted compared to a good single malt, or a pure malt blended scotch made from a smaller number of  whiskies, like the Johnny Walker Green Label. It just doesn't have much character.

And, frankly, given the price, it doesn't offer a compelling value. For about the same price, you can pick up a bottle of Highland Park single malt,  Old Pulteney single malt, or  Bowmore single malt, or, if you like bourbon, a bottle of Woodforde Reserve, or Willett Pot Still, all of which have more interesting character and flavor. For significantly less, you can get a bottle of Old Weller Antique Bourbon, which matches or betters Black Label, in my opinion.

Go another $5 to $10 higher, and you start being able to buy things such as Macallan 12-year-old single malt or the Balvenie Double Wood single malt, or Dalwhinnie 15-year-old single malt: all of which a far more interesting drams than Black Label.

If you offer me a glass of Johnny Walker Black Label, I won't refuse it, and I'll enjoy sipping it. But this is not a whisky I would ever seek out, unless the bar was bereft of anything better.