What do we think of Johnnie walker black label? Johnnie Walker Black Label is the second cheapest label in the Johnnie Walker product range. But what is it all about and how does it stack up as a whisky? The Black Label is a great whisky to have on your shelf. It has a little bit of smoke and it is relatively inexpensive. We have hand-picked a few reviews which will give you a good idea whether you should buy a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. If you are interested in the Johnnie Walker labels, check out our post on the most expensive Johnnie Walker labels. Video transcript hello everybody and welcome to the whisky dictionary where I do the research to try to teach you a little something about what you’re drinking tonight we’re going to be talking about Johnnie Walker Black a blended Scotch whisky that’s usually as iconic as Jack Daniels but considerably different [Music] I’ve already talking about Johnny Walker and kind of who put this all together and the whole history they’re over in my Johnny Walker red video so if you’re interested go watch that but for this video I’m gonna focus just on the black so Johnny Walker Black being a blend means that it is made up of a bunch of different scotches and in this case about 40 oh and they claim basically from all the corners of Scotland and a couple of the major ones in it are from talisker and from kalila so those are bolts actually pretty good whiskey so it’s pretty nice that this was made up of that there’s really not that much more to say it’s you know a fairly basic whiskey but the one thing looks nice is because it is a blend if you’re having this at home with me it’s going to be very similar to what I’m having here it’s not identical so let’s go ahead and get right into the nosing in addition all right no no no no no course all right so let’s nose so being 80 proof this is a not extremely you know there’s no burn kind of when you know that so feel free to kind of inhale deep and see if you can pick anything up so for me personally I’m getting now you know it’s kind of like for relief like you know flowers and and it’s definitely like some honey going on there but I’m not really getting too much more it’s not very complicated on the nose so why don’t we just go right into the tasting Cheers alright so the way that I would probably describe this best is almost a little unfair because as I said it’s not really complex but like I almost want to say it’s watery but it’s not watery it’s just very light and there’s really not a lot going on there there’s definitely like caramel notes which typical little honey and you know there’s actually like a little hint of like it maybe like got like dark for like I think like black cherries or like raisins or plums things like that outside of that not not a ton going on but the thing is if you’re watching this video you probably like one of two people right so you’re either my typical Watchers who are just interested in whiskey reviews or you know information or whatnot or you found this because you’re looking to go buy your first real whiskey and maybe you you know just out of college and you’re ready to graduate from Johnny Walker Jack Daniels and you’re looking for something a little bit better so that might be for how you found me and if that is the case I very much encourage you to go buy this personally this was my first bottle of scotch that I ever bought as well not that someone obviously but and I’ve clearly come a long way so I think that this is a great starter and more importantly if you’re having people over for a party let’s say you’re like 40 and you’re just on a party and you you know maybe having people over who don’t really love whiskey but you kind of want to like and you know push them towards it this is a good one to have on your shelves because people are willing to try this especially when you tell them it’s a little mild anyway so that’s about all I really want to talk about here so outside of the whiskey there’s a couple of other things I want to bring up so first off due to the generosity of one of my patrons I’m going to be buying Johnnie Walker Blue very soon it was one of my goals on my patreon page and I’m actually looking really forward to it so I’m going to be doing that a couple of months because ideally I would like to kind of go through the whole rainbow of Johnnie Walker’s in order to get up to the blue and I would like to do that but without just hammering you guys with giant Walker over and over and over again but we’ll see how that plays out but while talking about the patreon thing I don’t want you to turn away because this isn’t just another guy on YouTube kind of talking about patreon and donate what not just if you’re one of our EP one of my repeat viewers I want you to think about what this channel is to you if this is something that when it shows up in your subscriptions you get excited and you really want to watch it you know maybe consider donating if this is very informative to you maybe consider donating or if you just want to see me people to afford like way nicer whiskies you know like actually one of my goals on patreon is to buy Macallan M which is somewhere around like five grand or so now that doesn’t mean I’m going to be getting that much per month that’s silly but ultimately like I you know I save all the money that I get from patreon and when I hit that goal but what I’m planning on buying so I would like to buy some really cool stuff and frankly like I can’t afford to drop five K on a bottle whiskey at the moment anyway so if you’re at all interested please check that out really consider donating anything you give felt so outside of that there’s one more thing I’d really like to bring up about two years ago actually I think March 16th and my last video came out of March 15th of course but on March 16th I put on my very first video back in 2015 so my channels been around for a little over two years and I’m actually really proud of it so you may have noticed like last month I put out two videos and that is kind of going to be my standard going forward if not more I finally have a little bit more time and you know I really want to do at least a review and then like an informative video every month and yes I you know do a third or fourth video there going to be a little bit more long-form like I have some plans to go visit some local distilleries pretty soon and based on how those go or you know it kind of comes out well I’m going to post those up on the channel as well because I just think that that’s a neat thing to do so I wanted to give you guys just kind of for a lack of a better term term like a state of the UNEP what my channel is going to be doing and I’m really excited about the future because I have no reason to stop this I really enjoy doing it so I hope that you enjoy watching it and I starting to notice that I’m getting kind of a bit of a following and I’m loving it I wake up most mornings to email in my you know on my phone and you know this person subscribe this person subscribe usually like four or five six people a night and you know that’s not counting what I get during the day so like the channel is really growing and its really really motivating to me so lastly I really want to thank anybody here who’s watching the channel for you know the support and all that and and for really motivating me to to do this because it’s a fun hobby I enjoy it and I’m hoping that you’re getting something out of it too so until the next time I hope you have a great night and thank you for watching the whisky dictionary Cheers Video transcript welcome to we’re fine spirits meet my name is luening horst Cooney and I’m the master taste of and today we taste the world-famous Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 years old yesterday we had the double black which is a cousin a younger cousin to the 12 year old black label but it’s called a double black because it should be more intense more smoky more something than the 12 year old but the 12 year old is the older brother to the red ladle and together the red and the black label 12 years old are the best-selling or is the best-selling blended whiskey from Scotland all over the world the most important thing about the 12 year old Black Label is the 12 years old so they are taking whiskies longer mature than the typical whiskies for branding or to a yeah to a well-known established brand and why are they adding a double black to this range my personal point of view is that the stocks are becoming less and less because the whiskey has so much success in the world that they have to add for the customer something younger and easier to produce you have to wait 12 years what have you done in the year 2002 so this was the time when the 12 year old here was produced was distilled and laid in cast rest so it’s the long time of maturation which counts for the Black Label what’s on the box blended Scotch whisky 40% ABV mmm Johnnie Walker & Sons established 1820 so it’s quite an old company and Alexander Walker was one of the yeah the very first pine is to produce blended whiskies that meant the old malt whiskey where I’m a friend of were mixed together with a newly created grain whiskies from column stills and they were mixed together to bring a blended whisky on the market and Alexander Walker was one of the very first who looked after marketing and worldwide distribution and because he was was one of the first and not much went wrong in the upcoming centuries they are the best-selling Scotch whisky in the world it’s the privilege of one of the first on the market the tradition of quality and refinement established when John Walker opened for business in 1820 remains alive today in this internationally award-winning blend which is recognized by expose the word finest deluxe whiskey please note Deluxe is no official or class writing for a blended whiskey masterfully blended from over 40 specially selected whiskey’s each matured for more than 12 years even the grain whiskies this is not often known all whiskies in this Johnny Walker 12 years old have to be twelve years old even the grain whiskies long Black Label REE wields a satisfyingly sophisticated of tastes smoother stylish complex and unique silky and rich it’s deep fruity foreground flavors give way to dry a pity yaaasss vanilla and the resin tones and a long dark malt driven finish with color in its very light smoky nose in the beginning combining with fruitiness cypress fruits and aged depth it’s not that intense as a mod whiskey single malt whiskies it’s more elegant more fluent more fruity less okayness less Martinez but sell character isn’t that present a lot of vanilla yeah 12 years is a much longer time than the whiskey in these double black I think is so there’s more vanilla and a minimal smokiness quite intense but not that spicy as the double black is it’s smoother but intense and in the back light bitterness appears the mouthfeel is variable its silky its oily and then in the back there is a piece of oak I’m chewing on I’ve said that at the double black tasting a few minutes ago off which you seen a day ago um I think it’s it comes from the casks from the old cast in which the grain whiskey resides fruitiness for me the 12 year old is smoother more rewarding it’s more elegant it’s not that heavy not that spicy like the double black is the 12 year old Black Label good blended whiskey and for sure it’s one of the best-selling blended whiskies in the world I don’t know if you divide the red label from the black label 12 years old how the 12 years old who would rank in the world somewhere place 20 30 40 I’ve got idea but if you look around in the bars its you can see it quite often yeah thank you for watching stay tuned there’s more to come feel free to discuss this video with me on our newly opened forum or and feel free to share this video with your friends you Video transcript [Music] hi there welcome to no-nonsense whiskey – pmpf on today’s episode we’ve got a huge heavy hitter in the whiskey world and something that I think pretty much every person who is kind of reviewing whiskey in any capacity should really cover at some point and now this is me this is the Johnnie Walker Black Label it’s not the first Johnnie Walker I’ve covered I’ve covered the red label I’ve covered the blue label and I’ve covered the white Walker all of which I’ll put in a Johnny Walker playlist just up here if you’re interested in those whiskey’s this one it’s the kind of first in what they call their premium bracket so the red label is kind of really like bog-standard cheapest whiskey that they make and it’s generally kind of a mixers spirit whereas this is the first one in their range that’s designed more to be drank on its own or in any other way that you deem necessary now they’ve got a huge huge huge history they didn’t always look like this they’ve had many different iterations over the years but the Black Label itself came in 1909 when they did a big rebrand and included a little striding man that we see on the front of most if not all of Johnnie Walker’s bottlings they’ve got a huge huge history back from like 1820 but really we’re talking 1909 onwards when we’re talking about the kind of modern Johnnie Walker bottlings going on from 1909 of course the Johnnie Walker label transferred over to the distillers company in 1925 and then that was bought by Guinness in 1986 and finally guinness merged and they kind of put Diageo as a brand as a company together in 1997 and that’s what we’ve got now so this is a Diageo brand and it’s the biggest selling brand of scotch whiskey in the world that’s got overtaken by Indian whisky fairly recently in the last couple of years but scotch whiskey still Johnnie Walker red label is kind of the the highest selling one of the range but this is a close second I think maybe not close but you know it’s a second its second right let’s get into the whiskey itself and see really if it’s worth the money we’re talking obvi at 40% whiskey here and in the UK the price can really does vary wildly from about 20 pounds to up to 30 depending on time of year and he deals that on what shop you’re in that’s what stuff let’s see what we’ve got in the glass shall we we’re not gonna talk about color this is obviously been added color it’s supposedly a mixture of up to 40 different whiskeys right across from the range so this there’s everything in this everything that’s ever gone the nose the first thing that jumps out to me is a load of some dried fruits let’s say we’re talking we’re talking like raisins and soltahr as that sort of thing some sherry notes in there as well just probably where I’m getting the kind of dried fruits from definitely shared whisky in this no shadow doubt but my favorite thing about this is the touch of smokiness to it we’re not talking like P smoke it’s definitely not that this is it’s almost like it’s come from the barrel you know extra charring on the barrel that sort of thing there is pitted whiskey in here but it’s a very very very small percentage just to give it a bit of added depth rather than to really take over it’s a really nice nose actually really nice you kind of lose yourself in it let’s try on a palate something that really surprises me about this is that it doesn’t taste that thin now usually at 40 percent chill filtered all that kind of stuff my kind of thinness comes through on the palate and by that I mean it tastes a little watery not that kind of thick look I’m kind of viscous all the things that we kind of generally like you can see on the legs this I can see on the legs anyway that it’s not that not that leggy but generally speaking the palates quite tasty it’s kind of spicy forward cinnamon is something that I get quite a lot on it some toffee notes in there as well more of that dried fruit from the nose and that smoke is coming back towards the end and again it’s not a kind of heavy Pete it’s more of a kind of gentle kind of toasted smokey woody smoke that kind of thing it’s not an earthy or a medicinal kind of Pete so really quite tasty mmm the finish surprisingly long actually quite spicy as well and a kind of waft of that warming a smokiness I mean the thing is it’s one of those whiskies that people tend to discount because it’s Johnny Walker now Johnny Walker red label I don’t really like that whisky it’s not not a good whisky in my personal opinion but this really is and it’s not that many pounds more it’s not a single malt whisky so it’s got a lot of grain in there as well we don’t know the exact percentage but it’s gonna be bulking it up everything in it it’s been aged a minimum of 12 years as denoted by the age statement on the bottle sure they’ve put it through some rough kind of processes to get it down to its forty percent chill filtered added color all the things that people generally speaking but have a big no-no but I got this for like 20 pounds in the UK maybe just a touch more you know this is we’re talking a few quid more than the red label is literally that’s about 16 pounds in the UK maybe four or five pounds or more and you’re getting such a better whisky I added this in my top five go-to whisky so I put a link to that up here as well and I stand by it it’s one of those whiskies that I will always have around because it’s just really good quality for the price and you can drink it without worrying about breaking the bank for me it’s a recommended already going a kind of thinness come ere come student [Music] Final words So, that’s the Johnnie Walker Black Label. A really nice, subtle, smoky whisky. We absolutely love the Black Label and is a regular one we buy. A big step up from the Red Label but not that much more expensive. A no brainer really. If you enjoyed this review, check out some other posts that our reader love below.