What most people don't realize about most blended whiskies is that they are blends of single malt whisky with un-aged grain alcohol, typically from corn, but maybe from barley. This is why they are cheap. Only a portion of each bottle is aged. It also results in reltively weak taste.wrong hole said:
Johnny Walker's more-expensive blends are blended only from single malt whisky, nothing else. The most expensive, Blue Label, is a blend of older whiskies. Still I personally don't see the point in this as it blends out much of the unique individual tastes and flavours resulting from what grains were used to make it, what peat was used to malt it and what cellar/cask it was aged in.
My favourites are
Macallan 12, 18 and 25 (although the 18 is just as good as the 25, maybe better and a lot cheaper.)
Highland Park 25
As you can tell I like highland whiskys, not Islays. I don't like the bite from the iodine in the sea-water-soaked peat they use to malt the barley.
I recently tried a very rare whisky which is actually relatively inexpensive. It was a 21 year old Glen Morangie aged in Cuban rum barrels. Because it had seen a Cuban barrrel the Americans made it illegal under the trade with Cuba act and it can't be sold in, or transported through, the US. It is therefore not easy to sell and relatively inexpensive.
There were only 4 bottles of the stuff imported into Ontario on a special order. It was brought in for one of the major downtown hotels but a few other bars got a bottle each. Try it. It is very smooth.
