Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 Year Old

A good blended scotch for a fair price. On the nose : fruit, raisins, vanille, smoke and peat. Better than the non-smoke, non-peat blended whiskies : Famous Grouse, JWRed, Bells, Teachers etc. 85 points

21st March 2023

Sipping one in a bar with a copita glass right now in Spain as I wanted to try one as it’s getting difficult to find whiskies here. So I wanted a cheaper alternative to what I usually drink (to keep them for longer)- Laphroaig, bowmore, caol Ila and wanted to try this one as you can find it here quite easily. I’m not a blended lover, even though I have tried some more select ones which are quite nice, I find this to be perfectly acceptable for a mass produced one. Definitely get those Christmassy notes, some smoke, a bit too smooth for me maybe but enjoyable- like a lighter jura 10

30th November 2022

On the nose I get a buttery toffee with apple.

On the palate I get a very smoky charred wood flavor with a hint of peat. Sultanas and a slight toffee note add to the flavor, a dash of water makes this whisky more appealing. The finish is short and spicy with a hint of fruit.

Like most Scotch a acquired taste, much prefer Bourbon as it tends not to beat you up as much.

24th October 2022

Really like this blended whiskey as good as a few malts, my new favourite

5th August 2022

JWBL used to be about as close to a standard affordable stalwart as....well as almost every single whisky in Scotland until the psycho CEO class decided that nobody would notice if they ripped the heart out of their products and replaced them with dreck!
I have changed the drams I buy several times over the years, as more and more beloved whiskies have been mutilated. One heartbreaking example was Ballantine's 17 year old. I badly miss Lagavulin 16. They sell whisky called Lagavulin 16, but it is emphatically NOT Lagavulin 16. It no longer exists. There are some bright lights of course. We know who they are.
God Bless Them.
Like many of the non-paid, experienced reviewers on this website, I have been drinking JWBL since The Eighties. This whisky has been criminally mistreated for many years, but every now and then I buy a bottle....just to see how bad things have become. I do the same with Big Macs....just to remind myself that I hate them. Now I don't know whether it is my imagination, or whether I have become so unused to drinking Black Label that I can't actually remember what it tastes like, but the couple of bottles I have bought this year have actually been pleasant. I live in an Asian megacity. I don't know whether that is relevant. And there is a shop not too far away from me that sells vintage Blue Label. (!)
But I am drinking a just-bought measure of JWBL right now and the only thing it seems to be lacking is the oily mouthfeel that we know and love and touch of depth. Perhaps previous bottling have been so utterly pathetic that I have set the bar too low for a valid opinion?
I eagerly await a response from the MoM community. :-)

21st May 2022

When this stuff was 43% it was very, very good as far as a 12-year-old Blended Whisky goes. It is not the same whisky regardless of it being 3% weaker. I suspect management have thought:- No one drinks Black Label straight anymore, let's reformulate it to be a "premium mixer".

7th April 2022

I consider JW Black to be an excellent, neat drinking whisky, which is, perhaps, best not over-analysed. I can understand why some whisky ‘experts’ on these pages are rather dismissive of it due to it’ rather uncomplicated taste. However, I enjoy it and I have never known anyone turn their nose up at it, when handed a dram.
It is usually to be found ‘on offer’ at one of the major supermarkets in my area. I have bought several bottles in the last year at a good reduction on the price shown above. I consider it to be a bargain as I can afford to be generous when sharing it with whisky drinking friends which, for me, is what it’s all about.

27th January 2022

I'm an old Scotch guy -- Scotch being the poison I picked decades ago, and reformed single malt snob -- partial to the Islays. Not long ago at a not s' well-stocked watering hole I found myself in need of a dram. Black was the best they had on offer. Okay -- what the hell? Blown away. Love at first nip. Quick! To my phone! To see if it's okay to like the stuff and order it in front of pals! I see world renowned whisk(e)y guy, Jim Murray, raves about it. Gives it a 94! TOTALLY agree with his bang-on assessment of this liquid. This stuff is a litmus test. IF you like this perfect "ancient" (1909) blend, you know your Scotch. IF you poo poo it? You're probably still in your single malt phase. You'll outgrow it -- eventually. I neither do nosings nor spout off imaginary tasting notes of this and that I never seem to detect. (Smells like -- hooch! Tastes like -- Scotch!) BUT if I was, I'd say it noses of raisins, and it tastes like chocolate covered sour cherries. Delicious. It's mercifully not too sweet (which some single malts are to the point of cloying, especially the Speysides, though Islays often are too once you get past the upfront smoke). Here is the beauty of this blend: the 12 year old grain whiskeys lighten things up and smooth out the finish (to the point it's dangerous) admittedly at the expense of a somewhat lighter mouthfeel while toning down the cloying cotton candy sweetness of pure malts whilst at the same time bringing the price back down to earth. Maybe they were on to something back in 1909. I'd argue they "fixed" single malts. Like I said 1000 words ago in this rant, I'm a reformed single malt snob. Oh -- and it has an honest-t'-goodness respectable 12 yr age statement! Something else it has over the singles in this sad "another day another NAS Scotch release" era we're now in.

23rd January 2022

JW Black was the first modestly-priced Scotch I found in Canada that wasn't harsh and had a lingering smoky aftertaste. It's lost a lot of its depth in recent years. If it hasn't already, it will serve as another example of a once-great brand bought and made more cheaply by a multinational comglomerate.

10th January 2022

Underrated and overpriced these days (even at the UK supermarket offer price of 20 quid). I bought a bottle from an auction site that had been bottled in the 80s and that was vastly superior to the current distillation. It's such a shame as this whisky was great. I still drink it occasionally to try and recapture the delicious flavours of older bottlings, but it's sadly gone.

30th December 2021