Review: Johnnie Walker Black Cask

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?

Johnnie Walker‘s latest blend, Black Cask, is inspired by that most Scottish of spirits: Bourbon. While standard Black Label is aged in a variety of barrels, including American and European oak, Black Cask uses only American ex-bourbon oak in the mix. While it’s actually white oak, the name is a reference to the deep char that bourbon barrels get. The whiskies used in the blend are pulled from the same collection as Black Label, specifically “the heart” of that collection.

The result: “A new flavor experience for today’s whiskey drinkers” — and one that’s clearly designed for mixing. Let’s give it a whirl.

Johnnie Walker Black Cask Review

Clean and malty on the nose, this immediately strikes a classic blended Scotch character that is easily identifiable as part of the Johnnie Walker family, though there is indeed more of a charry — not smoky, mind you — edge to the aroma. That, I presume, is exactly what master blender Emma Walker was going for here. Time in glass helps this evolve. Notes of cherry, cinnamon, and black tea are all at least bourbon-adjacent, these aromatics becoming stronger the longer they spend in the glass.

On the palate, a surprisingly fruit-forward character dominates a fairly light body, heavy on caramel-soaked apples, with buttery shortbread notes alongside. Here the whisky clearly takes a more classic, Scotch-forward turn, and while bourbon elements are in the mix, the weight of the whisky remains across the pond. That too is probably as intended: Scotch that tastes like bourbon would be pointless and weird.

Butterscotch develops and culminates in a finish of brown sugar, milk chocolate, and more of a brown butter creaminess. It’s bright and creamy and largely innocuous. On its own it drinks on the lighter side of the whiskyverse; in cocktails like an Old Fashioned and Gold Rush it keeps things practically summery.

86 proof.

B+ / $35 [BUY IT NOW FROM FROOTBAT]

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