Johnnie Walker Red Label

I knew I had to start somehow but didn't really know-how. What to put in the front line? Which review could kick this blog off? Well, I made up my mind now. It has to be Johnnie Walker Red Label and there are many reasons for it. 

Johnnie Walker in general is the best-selling Scotch brand in the world and the bottle of Red Label is one of the most recognizable spirit bottles on the planet. I don’t remember the first time I saw it. Probably a very long time ago and for sure in an American film. What I remember very well is when I saw this bottle of Red for the first time in a Polish film. It was Miś (Teddy Bear), a masterpiece from 1980, directed by Stanisław Bareja. A cult film, which used a surreal humour to get past the censorship in the Polish People’s Republic. Teddy Bear is something simply impossible to understand for the people of the West. In fact, it is totally incomprehensible for the younger generations of Poles (all those born after the 80s). Whoever remembers the time when Poland was under the communist regime will always praise this film, which, being utterly funny, is also a great testimony of those weird times. 

There is a scene. One of the characters wants to go to England. He comes to visit the lady he’s supposed to go with and there, the bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label appears, as the lady offers him a drink. It’s a whisky. This is what English people drink, she says. Poor guy doesn’t know the whisky has been drugged before in order to knock him out, so she could go to England with someone else. I can’t stop here. I have to tell you about some other fragment of the same film. In fact, it’s also about whisky. Bear with me a little longer, please.
A guy mentioned above, Stanisław was his name, never got anywhere, but he doesn’t know that. He’s been drugged, and he doesn’t remember anything so when the policeman tells him he needs to return his passport, because he recently came back from England, he’s totally surprised. His friends start to make jokes out of him, asking how long he’s been there for. He says he was there for one day only.
‘It’s hard to stand, man’, he says. ‘They drink this ginger booze made of mice’.  
‘So, they drink even more than we drink here?’, asks one of his friends. 
‘You can even compare it’, Stanisław replies. ‘You drink a tiny bit and you are unconscious for two days. 

Believe me or not. I have never ever tried Red Label before, not until the fall of 2019. Yes, I have finally admitted this. When I decided to start my whisky adventure I bought myself four bottles of Johnnie Walker: Red, Black, Double Black and Green. All on Amazon, all very discounted. Don’t really know why all from this brand, doesn’t matter now. I guess I just wanted to progress through the ranks, having them, one by one, to discover all the differences in smell and taste. Naturally, I had to start with Red Label. 
Nice bottle and nicely placed right at the bottom of the chain. You put them all together, and you instinctively know that Red will be this very basic one. It was £15 per bottle, not very much, still very iconic for me, so I cracked that open with a pounding heart. 
The smell wasn’t nice. Very distant hint of fruits, overpowered with kerosene, rubber and this very particular odour of fresh alcohol. The smell of vodka I call it. I was expecting more from something which is considered to be a blend of “35 finest malts and grain whiskies”. I smelled a lot of grain, but this you can get from any bottle of vodka. Taste? Rough and harsh. Not very pleasant. You swallow, you burp and all you get back in your mouth is half-digested alcohol. If you never tried whisky before, I can’t blame you if you are immediately done with it and never want to try again. People say this whisky was designed to be mixed with other stuff, never to be smelled or enjoyed neat. I know it now, but it was not so obvious to me back then, when I opened that bottle, my first and last bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. 

Masters, I don’t know what you drink. Surely, I don’t know how you drink it. I’m very sorry, but there’s nothing like “surprisingly rich, aromatic nose with heather honey”. Cedarwood, oak and butterscotch, aniseed, Christmas cake and malt”, so many words, maybe too much, especially on that level. You do get a long finish, I agree with that, but that’s probably something you don’t want in this particular case. 

Time to finish. Don’t buy if you don’t have to. It comes cheap but is it really worth the price? I will tell you soon what I opened right after Red Label, another iconic bottle, and how these two look next to each other. 

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