A Black Label bottling of 54 years ago! I got a sample of this from Rare Whisky Site, about a year and a half ago and more or less forgotten about it after tasting the Old Mork, Ballantines and Haig samples that were in there. I decided to taste it, especially after seeing the Johnnie Walker Red Label review by Ralfie on Youtube a while ago. He did a head to head with the new and old version. I originally planned to do a head to head between the new Black Label and this oldie, but I didn’t feel like spending € 25 on a bottle of crap whisky. I still have a 1960s bottling of Johnnie Walker Black Label and will try to taste that somewhere in the future.

Nose:
Very intense, with full smoke unlike the thin coarse smoke of the current version. Some barley and cereal, sweet bread crust, tree bark and wood. Also quite spicy with grilled fruit, bacon and barbecue. Straw and more and more smoke with quite a big dollop of sherry influence.

Taste:
Light and spicy, wood. Sparkling almost, well, tingling. Salty smoke with lemon, hard candy and sticky sugar.

Finish:
Not too long, but absolutely not bad. Wood, cereal, sweet vanilla and caramel. The bacon and barbecue thing is back again.

I wish they still made blends like this. This is an absolutely terrific whisky and if this was regularly available, I would drink way more blended stuff than I do now! The nose is stunning with loads of things happening and while there is slightly less going on on the palate and in the finish, it’s still quite awesome.

Johnnie Walker Black Label, bottled in 1958, OB, 40%, samples available at Rare Whisky Site for € 9.60 for 2.5cl.