someone shoved Johnnie Walker Blue up in my grill AND LEFT IT AT MY HOUSE!!!

[jrw]

A more precise description would be to refer to JWBL as a "vatted" scotch. Blended has the connotation of a single malt or two blended with neutral grain spirits and the result generally is a lesser animal. Vatted is also a blend, if you insist, but is comprised wholly of a mixture of single malts without any grain spirits so it's "pure" scotch. JW green and gold labels are, I believe, vatted scotches whereas JW red and black are blended and if I'm not mistaken, the black is the largest seller scotch worldwide. Johnnie Walker has kicked it up a notch with JW King George V Blue Label--don't ask me what it tastes like, someone will have to leave it to me in their will, because it goes for about $550 a bottle.

A very good listing and description of available scotches, maybe so much info that you'll come out more confused than when you went in, can be found on this vendor's site:

http://www.klwines.com/content.asp?N...ASpecial+Order)

kayaker has given many good suggestions. I'd start with the Macallan as excellent palate training for what a single malt should taste like. Be forewarned, the single malt slope is every bit as slippery as the seegar slope.

[kayaker]

Here's a link to the JW site.

The green label is the vatted malt, the rest are regular blends.

The sites gives a description of each label and also has serving suggestions as how to best enjoy each.

Interesting enough is their emphasis on cold. The Red is for mixed drinks. Black and Green over ice. Chill the Gold for 24 hours and serve in a chilled glass. Sip ice water along with the Blue.

From all the reading I've done (and heard at tastings) cold in the mouth tends to deaden the taste buds a bit. So to me, it is what you would do for something that tastes bad but you had to take it.

But to each their own. I like mine neat, roomish temperature and maybe with a drop of water or 2.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by jrw

\if I'm not mistaken, the black is the largest seller scotch worldwide.

Red is their biggest seller. Let's not forget JW Swing; not much talk about that one. I find it too light and smooth.

[mrreindeer]

Very interesting stuff fellas, thanks so much. I was wondering why the heck my neighbor would have his Big Gulp cup of JWBlue (no joke) filled to the brim with ice. I drank mine neat (without the ice, at room temp.) and would never have thought to screw it up (or dulling my senses) with adding anything. But hey, to each his own & heck, he was the one who footed the JWBlue tab so who am I to argue. I've been told about the tablespoon of water...perhaps I'll have to try that the next time we have 'em over but as far as I'm concerned, the stuff was pretty darn perfect by itself! Damn that stuff!

And I'm going on day five & I haven't had so much as a drop, leaving it to the next time the guy comes over.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by mrreindeer

Very interesting stuff fellas, thanks so much. I was wondering why the heck my neighbor would have his Big Gulp cup of JWBlue (no joke) filled to the brim with ice. I drank mine neat (without the ice, at room temp.) and would never have thought to screw it up (or dulling my senses) with adding anything. But hey, to each his own & heck, he was the one who footed the JWBlue tab so who am I to argue. I've been told about the tablespoon of water...perhaps I'll have to try that the next time we have 'em over but as far as I'm concerned, the stuff was pretty darn perfect by itself! Damn that stuff!

And I'm going on day five & I haven't had so much as a drop, leaving it to the next time the guy comes over.

Call the guy tonight and tell him you had a flood in your basement and if he can help you move a few things around. When he gets there tell him you already finished and ask him if he wants a drink that way you get to drink some Blue tonight!!! Offer him a nice stogie.

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by mrreindeer

I've been told about the tablespoon of water...perhaps I'll have to try that

About the water thing, my Scottish Scotch pusher says a common phrase in Scotland is that you should always have water with your whisky and always have whisky with your water.

That said, approach the water issue with care. A few drops (literally) can open up some of the flavour of a whisky. Use spring water or anything free of minerals etc. Try a drop or two at a time and watch what happens in the glass, swirl it a little and try it. You can add a bit more if you like and see how the taste changes. You may find it helps you may find it doesn't. Depends on the whisky and you.

Also keep in mind the ABV (percentage of alcohol) of the bottle you are drinking. Drinking strength is considered to be 40%, but that depends on you. Scotch is generally bottled between 40-46%, but may be bottled as cask strength up to 60+%. The higher the alcohol, the more burn you get with each sip.

Personally I generally don't add water to my scotch, I like it the way it is. Even for some cask strength bottlings, I add very little if anything. However, I'm still experimenting with this.

So, to repeat myself, add a drop or two at a time and see how you like it. You can always add more but if you add too much then you need to add more whisky and soon your wake up bowing to the throne with a splitting headaches.

Not that that's ever happened to me.

[mrreindeer]

Thanks fellas.

Originally Posted by scottw

Call the guy tonight and tell him you had a flood in your basement and if he can help you move a few things around. When he gets there tell him you already finished and ask him if he wants a drink that way you get to drink some Blue tonight!!! Offer him a nice stogie.

Freaking GREAT idea! Hey Scott, what's a basement? [img]http://www.************.com/forum/images/smilies/laugh3.gif[/img][img]http://www.************.com/forum/images/smilies/laugh3.gif[/img]

[Lumpold]

Originally Posted by kayaker

Interesting enough is their emphasis on cold. The Red is for mixed drinks. Black and Green over ice. Chill the Gold for 24 hours and serve in a chilled glass. Sip ice water along with the Blue.

From all the reading I've done (and heard at tastings) cold in the mouth tends to deaden the taste buds a bit. So to me, it is what you would do for something that tastes bad but you had to take it.

But to each their own. I like mine neat, roomish temperature and maybe with a drop of water or 2.

JW claim that you need to chill the whisky so that as you drink it, the temperature change in the whisky releases the different flavours (chemical compounds), thus giving you the full range. The idea isn't to make the drink cold, just cooler, meaning the the temp range (10C to body temp) is right for the drink.

[ucla695]

Originally Posted by mrreindeer

Freaking GREAT idea! Hey Scott, what's a basement?

I think it's where they keep their socks on the East Coast.

[epyon26]

just come back over the top of them, get'em back

[scottw]

Originally Posted by ucla695

I think it's where they keep their socks on the East Coast.

You guys suck! The basement is where the hydostatic pressure causes flooding resulting in me getting a bill from Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing for $12,700 last month after spending several hundred thousand dollars rebuilding my house after the F*#^er burned down. Glad you don't have one!

[mrreindeer]

Oof, that's awful Scott!

Okay fellas, I'M GOIN' IN!

I'm going to my store today to do some scotch huntin'. I really appreciate all your tips. I've jotted down all the ones you've mentioned and I'll see what they've got. I'll keep 'ya posted!

[mrreindeer]

Well, I was sidetracked and didn't get to the liquor store like I thought I would. I hope to do it today.

However.....

Very curious update on the JW Blue:

It has now been 19 days without a drip of the stuff. Oh, I've had other wonderful beverages, to be sure, but none of the JW Blue that sits in my cupboard and mocks me daily.

Well, yesterday, mrsreindeer & I excited (and misinformed) that it was Friday (it was not), we decided to enjoy some Mexican sustenance and cadillac margaritas at our usual neighborhood haunt. As usual, we wanted to continue our afternoon fiesta (I work East Coast hours so it was 3pm PST but surely 5 o'clock somewhere) so mrsreindeer ran for 31 Flavors (all of them) & I ran to Longs Drugs to pick up some JW Black because I couldn't get it outta my head and I refused to break into the JW Blue in the cupboard.

Damn, that stuff is cheap! And you know what, pretty close to the Blue, really, certainly not worth spending an extra $120 a bottle for Big Blue.

Oh, you're wondering how I know it was close to the Blue as far as I was concerned, me, with my immature Scotch palate....well......

Okay, so I took the damn Blue out of the box that stood as a formidable barrier between my drunken self and the liquid within and poured a TINY bit into a glass because I wanted to do a comparison of the two.

I was more ambitious with my pour of the JW Black, of course, and then I noticed something.

Remember that I said that the JW Blue had 2/3 left in the bottle when the neighbor refused to take it home with him and I subsequently put it in the cupboard? Yeah, BEFORE my 2 Tablespoon pour last night (seriously, I can't honestly drink the stuff without inviting the guy over to have it with me), that 2/3 had magically changed to 1/2.

SOMEBODY FREAKING DRANK THE JOHNNIE WALKER BLUE THAT MY NEIGHBOR SHOVED UP IN MY GRILL AND LEFT AT MY HOUSE.

WTF?

Could I have been sleepwalking since this bottle has been on my mind every waking second since it was cracked open on Halloween? Could my cats have gotten to it? The wife? Never; my cats lecture me daily that I probably need to lay off and mrsreindeer had been afraid of the stuff from the very beginning and never even tried it and we have plenty of alcohol in the house should she have an episode of private binge-drinking which isn't her M.O. (that I know of!).

So who could have had, wait, I have to calculate this.

2/3 - X = 1/2

2/3 - X + X = 1/2 + X

2/3 - 1/2 = X + 1/2 - 1/2

X = 1/6

The culprit took 1/6 of the bottle.

1/6 of a $150 bottle of booze is $25.

Not so bad BUT who would have stolen $25 out of my pocket, er, my neighbor's pocket? That disturbs me more than the fact that I'll, I mean, we'll (neighbor & me) have less JW Blue to drink if we ever do end up cracking into the bottle again.

Maybe the neighbor left it with me as a test? To see if I'd actually hold up my promise to him that I wouldn't touch it until we had him over again. Maybe this very incident will spark an outright war between our two households and he'll never trust me again and I'll begin finding horse heads in my bed of bougainvillea.

At least I'll have the 1/2 bottle to enjoy.

Soooo...to quote "Men at Work", who could it be now?

(raises hand) I know! (feeling proud like I've just figured out it was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Pipe)

Since Halloween, we've only had 3 friends over to the house and my inlaws, both groups at two separate times. The inlaws were over on Sunday, during the day and the 3 friends were over on Saturday night to watch the fight.

I've already questioned the inlaws under hot, bright lights and my mother-in-law was brought to tears. Either she's a very good actor or she had no idea what the hell I was talking about. I think she thinks my friend Johnnie was taken advantage of in a most heinous manor by a dwarf lion trainer. Not sure where the heck she'd come up with that idea.

So it leaves the 3 friends on Saturday.

All of you know I was diving on Saturday (because the fires were attacking our great city & I ran to the water like the sissy I am) so I wasn't home when mrsreindeer (defending the homestead from firestorm) decided to have a 'gathering of criminals' which is what I'll call the event from hereon out.

mrsreindeer swore to me (under the same hot, bright lights to which her parents were subjected) that she only left the room once during the 'gathering of criminals'.

Upon her return, one of these gathered criminals attempted to distract mrsreindeer with karaoke and wine. A glass of wine surely would have been enough. So it was within few seconds that one of these gathered criminals opened the blue box, retrieved the JW Blue, uncorked it, poured it into a glass, recorked it, returned the bottle to the box and put it back up in the cupboard, where it continued to mock me even more upon my return late Saturday night. From its perch in the cupboard, I could almost hear the bottle alluding to the thievery, as if to tell me, "See what happens when you leave the house and leave me vulnerable and defenseless?" I swear mrsreindeer has uttered these same words, even Saturday night as fires blazed a few mere miles away and I was off diving 30 miles away off Catalina Island.

Suspect #1: Way too short to even reach the cupboard. Because of her heritage, I'd reckon her a Tequila thief but not a Scotch thief...note to self: check the tequila. She's more of a spinner than a malt-beveragester.

Suspect #2: On direct orders from the doctor not to drink due to an outbreak of Hepatitis A.

Suspect #3: A Masshole . Patriots fan. 'Nuff said. Way smarter than me; he went to Cornell. He could've totally pulled this off but really he's not as good as he thinks because I was out of the house, 30 miles away. If I was there, whole 'nother story. He's tall, could easily reach the cupboard. Could easily beat the crap outta anybody posting an accusatory post on a cigar forum. Likes scotch, even had 2 glasses of the JW Blue on Halloween. Always tricks us by drinking 64 calorie lite beer but we never check the contents. mrsreindeer even attempted to go through the trash last night (no joke) because she was convinced Suspect #3 hadn't used a glass, possibly drank right from the bottle or poured right into a 64-calorie beer can. She wanted to smell the empty beer cans (again, no joke).

So, like my Boogergar situation where I've yet to confront the manager of the British Pub/Restaurant who shoved my cigars up his nose & gave them back to me (oh but I will), I intend to confront Suspect #3 and ask him for $25. I'll keep you posted.

Note: While the occurences above are somewhat accurate, I'm totally kidding. Even if Suspect #3 went into my cupboard and drank the booze which I'M FREAKIN' POSITIVE HE DID, I can't hold a grudge. He's a good guy and welcome to everything in my home except mrsreindeer. It's just kinda odd.

[raralith]

I've had Blue and Black back to back and I can definately tell that Blue was better; richer taste, more smooth, went down easier, better aroma. But the Black was very close, and so it all comes down to costs - is it worth it to get a superior product at 6 times the costs of a great product? It's similair to cigars - would you be happy with a $5 good cigar, or a $30 great cigar? Either way you're happy, either way the money is spent once you light it, but the difference is that someone is willing to pay $30 while some are not.

[mrreindeer]

Exactly; very good point.