Everybody knows Johnnie Walker, everybody.

Be it blue, or red, or black, gold and green, the iconic colours of Johnnie Walker are familiar to all, and are definitely a part of any person's whisky experience.

Yet, what might be lesser known is that the iconic blended whisky maker from East Ayrshire, Scotland's Kilmarnock, had started life in 1820 as one man's enterprising and visionary dream of making bespoke, made-to-order, blended whiskies for the customers of his grocery store. Despite not making any whiskies of his own, John Walker was able to create incredible whiskies that were unlike any others, certainly more than what distilleries could put out at the time - after all, these were blends of malt and grain whisky (although they had to be separated at the time by law). Customers would come on over from all over to have their whiskies blended and tailormade to their requirements, obtaining whiskies that delivered flavours and complexity that could not be achieved by a single distillery otherwise. And thus John Walker had founded the earliest innings of what would become Johnnie Walker!

Johnnie Walker through the ages.

Of course, much has happened over the course of the next 200 years. Johnnie Walker would prove to grow far and wide, way beyond the little grocery store along Kilmarnock. It would become recognisable the world over, captured by the symbol of the striding man. Today, the Red Label continues to be an accessible, entry-level blend, whilst the Black Label a cult favorite, and the Blue Label, of course, an icon. Johnnie Walker's grown and changed alot, even as it remains as successful as ever.

And so 205 years seems like about time for the king of blended Scotch whiskies to return to its roots - to make bespoke, made-to-order, tailormade blends that is.

Welcome to the Johnnie Walker Vault.

Dr Emma Walker working the Vault.

The Vault comes on the back of Dr Emma Walker's push to bring Johnnie Walker's blended whiskies to the next level - closer and more intimately interweaved into the lives of its fans.

Dr Emma Walker is Johnnie Walker's most recently appointed Master Blender, a highly coveted role that has been passed on from generation to generation over the past 200 plus years. But make no mistake, Dr Walker shares not relationship with the Walker family of Johnnie Walker, hers is a story of having spent 17 years with Johnnie Walker's parent Diageo, moving through the ranks from technical specialist to years long tours spent learning how whiskies are made from barley and grain to spirit at Diageo's stable of Scotch distilleries. In 2021, it was thus announced that Dr Jim Beveridge, Johnnie Walker's long time Master Blender for 20 years, would pass on the baton to Dr Walker. 

"How do we make something as iconic as Johnnie Walker relevant to people today. How do we keep our customers who know and love Johnnie Walker and balance that with bringing new people into that love of Johnnie Walker as well. Some of the recent experiences we’ve been looking at, including Johnnie Walker Princes Street [in Edinburgh], are definitely part of that “how do we open up the world of Johnnie Walker to a wider range?

There is so much craft and care and attention to quality, to flavor, to everything at our distilleries from Cardhu to Cameronbridge. It’s all about craft and care and attention. What we need to do is we need to find out how to tell that story in a way that makes sense and that chimes with the generations that are coming after the people coming after it as well.

How do we keep on thinking of new, innovative ways to put those whiskies together. Hopefully you’d think of Johnnie Walker Blue Label as taking everything we’ve learned but working it in a different way, engaging the senses, and bringing that whisky to life for people" 

Dr Emma Walker, Master Blender for Johnnie Walker

And thus it seems to be clear that Dr Walker's strategy to ensuring Johnnie Walker stays relevant, is to find new (or in this case, revive legacy traditions) ways to bring Johnnie Walker into the lives and consciousness of its fans. From collaborations with the likes of surrealist artist James Jean, to a new Ice Chalet expression with Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Johnnie Walker's first ever flavour centered expression Elusive Umami created together with Michelin chef Kei Kobayashi, Dr Emma Walker is as much about the craft as she is about where and how Johnnie Walker should be seen, and perhaps more crucially, how the brand interacts and engages with people.

Celebrated partnership have brought Johnnie Walker front and center of new audiences, exploring new ways of perceiving Scotch whisky.

She's also bringing to life the stories of some of Diageo's most fabled and previous whiskies - that is, the ones that come from distilleries no longer in existence, from Glenury Royal to Port Ellen and Brora (with the latter two having just been revived to much heated anticipation and excitement). Every drop enjoyed is one less bit of it in existence. This comes in the form of Dr Walker's Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost & Rare which feature the inclusion of whiskies from such "ghost" distilleries.

What's to come under Dr Walker's direction is something that's worth closely watching and should bring about many exciting new projects from a blended whisky icon that everyone knows and love - I'm convinced it's a new dawn for Johnnie Walker.

With the scene set, we really ought to get back into focus on what's at hand today - the Johnnie Walker Vault!

Johnnie Walker Vault.

The Johnnie Walker Vault as it just now opens to the public, is designed to be the pinnacle experience for any whisky or luxury lover. The experience is luxurious to say the least, including a stay at the historic Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, a Michelin-star dining session and a private tour of the Diageo Archive - all of which centered around the main highlight being a one-on-one bespoke blending session with Dr Emma Walker. Make no mistake, this isn't just a matter of creating a blend that befits your desired flavour profile. With several questions, the idea here is for Dr Walker to get a sense of your life story and create a tailormade blend that captures your essence. The bespoke blend will be drawn from a library of over 500 cask samples (of course including rare, highly aged and ghost distilleries), and on top of that the blend made for you will become chronicled as part of the Johnnie Walker Vault archive, never to be duplicated, and only available henceforth to be commissioned by you (unless of course a component fully runs out) - and you'll walk away with your personal blend housed in a crystal Baccarat handcrafted decanter. It's a whole thing.

And to celebrate the launch of the Johnnie Walker Vault Bespoke Blend program, we got a chance to take a little sneak peek of what it's all about (minus the hotel stay and Michelin-dining of course).

Here's our hour spent a Johnnie Walker blender!

For this session we were first acquainted with the tools of the trade - we each had a pipette, a funnel, a measuring cylinder, our own sample bottle, a flavour wheel and a set of whisky components that we'll be working with today.

Next we were then introduced to the five components (out of the extensive stable that is Diageo's distilleries in every region of Scotland) that we'll get to assemble our blend with, now this is where you want to get ready to gasp because bear in mind these are just a select sample of what the Johnnie Walker Vault gets to draw from.

We've got the following:

• Heart of the Blend & Caledonian 1977 
• Cardhu 2007 & Glenkinchie 1996 (Fresh Fruits & Floral)
• Singleton of Dufftown 21 Year Old (Fresh Fruits & Citrus)
• Mortlach 1999 & Clynelish 2010 (Dried Fruits)
• Port Ellen 1979 (Earthy Smoke)

As guided by Diageo Global Brand Ambassador Ewan Gunn.

These were also the components used to assemble the first bespoke blend made for Singapore-based fashion influencer Yoyo Cao, who was the first to work with Dr Emma Walker as part of the Johnnie Walker Vault Bespoke Blend program - and excitingly, we'll get to try that very blend later on.

And thus under the auspices of Diageo Senior Global Brand Ambassador Ewan Gunn, we began nosing each component and measuring them up, with the goal being to create our very own 100ml blend.

Let's get down to it!

Heart of the Blend & Caledonian 1977

As Ewan tells us and as the name suggests, this component is meant to form the core of the expression and importantly plays the role of giving stability and body to the blend, almost serving as a canvas.

The aromas here were of sweet and rich caramel, fresh white florals, just harvested and also stewed orchard fruits of apples and pears, even figs cooked in brown sugar. It was rich yet lifted, it didn't come off heavy yet had a really nice firmness to it. It was fresh and very inviting. I'd say this was quite classically Speyside in flavour profile.

Fun Fact: Caledonian was at one point the largest distillery in Scotland, and produced what was termed an Irish-style grain whisky, made using a Coffey still. The storied distillery nevertheless shuttered its doors in 1988 and has never produced since.

For this, we're going to add 41 ml to the blend. I really liked the richness and freshness of this, so in goes the heart of the blend.

Cardhu 2007 & Glenkinchie 1996, "Fresh Fruits & Floral"

We now come to the component "Fresh Fruits & Floral", itself a blend of 2007 Cardhu and 1996 Glenkinchie.

As Ewan tells us, going past the point of the Heart of the Blend, this is sort of like the next layer of the cake where we start to focus on aromatic and flavour intensity as opposed to body. This struck me as being elegant and bright, with lifted notes of orchard fruits of pears and vanilla, leaning almost somewhat confectionary.

As a big fan of both Cardhu and Glenkinchie (which I personally find rather underrated), I decided to add 23ml of this to the blend. 

Singleton of Dufftown 21 Years Old, "Fresh Fruits & Citrus"

Another component that follows the same stead as the Cardhu and Glenkinchie from before, this is "Fresh Fruits & Citrus", which is a Singleton of Dufftown that's 21 Years Old.

Nosing this, I find it to be richer and somewhat darker toned, with notes of apple and leather, coaxed in with some honey too. It's rounded and more muscular, with also a light outline of citrus accenting it.

This felt rather similar to the Heart of the Blend component, and thus I decided to keep this one at just 10ml, just to add alittle bit of citrus to the mix.

Mortlach 1999 & Clynelish 2010, "Dried Fruits"

Next up, we have two very beloved distilleries that each boast their own cult followings, this is "Dried Fruits", which is a blend of 1999 Mortlach and 2010 Clynelish.

This came off immediately waxy - as is to be expected from Clynelish, as the distillery's signature profile - with then more on orchard fruits of apples and pears, backed up by some darker and richer tones of toffee. This actually felt like a really complete expression on its own, if not for the fact that it's presented here as a component.

I really like the depth that this has, and also as a fan of both distilleries, I'm going for 22ml of this, keeping it almost on par with the Cardhu & Glenkinchie component, which I'm hoping with add more range to the blend and give it a nicely rich back marker.

Port Ellen 1979, "Earthy Smoke"

And then we get to the 5th and final component of today!

Everyone obviously knows Port Ellen, the legendary Islay distillery whose value was recognised a little too late, and whose whiskies became some of the most sort after only after the distillery shuttered in 1983. Now thankfully Diageo has since put in the work to reviving the distillery which is now well underway producing its whiskies once again (although of course it has to be said that it'll never truly be quite the same) - which will nevertheless take quite some years before we can taste the first drops of whisky from the revived Port Ellen Distillery, as it thus begins the long journey to ageing its whiskies. There was palpable excitement as we got to this component.

Port Ellen's revival is one of the most exciting happenings in the world of whiskies!

From the get go, the moment the glass cap was taken off, the power of this whisky was immediately apparent. The room was filled with that classic Islay character of kombu seaweed, a gentle cold smoke, as well as some saltiness of sea breeze, and drops of iodine. It's Islay through and through.

Now as Ewan cautions us, as much as we all love and revere Port Ellen, we don't want to go too hard with this because the goal is a harmonious blend, and so we don't want this to dominate. And so just 4ml we go, here's where the pipette came in quite handy.

And voila! We have 88 Bamboo's first blended whisky expression!

As a whisky lover this was obviously such a wonderfully fun and also really insightful experience, getting to be in the shoes of how a whisky blender would originate a flavour experience and then set out to create the blend that would achieve that. And on top of that, getting to use some incredible whiskies to do so - I could see how getting to make a bespoke blend out of the Johnnie Walker Vault would inarguably be the pinnacle of any whisky lover's journey, where you're getting to access the rarest treasures accrued over two centuries at the most iconic whisky house in the world, and all done alongside its Master Blender, Dr Emma Walker!

At the same time, it also made clear how so much of whisky blending is as much science as it is creative art. At times I felt transported back to my high school science lab, drawing milliliters with a pipette, calculating the volume, and then getting it in the sample bottle with a funnel. Yet at the same time there was as much the sheer pursuit of flavour and aromas, nosing each component and getting a feel for what it reminded one of, and how it would fit in with the other flavours and aromas, and almost assembling them into a cohesive picture, the whole thereby greater than the sum. It dictates incredible thoughtfulness, and yet there's also an exciting unpredictability of the outcome - you can play 3D Chess all you want with the pieces, yet when you put them all together, you never really can know what you're going to get. At times, the richness would be heightened, whilst in other instances, the smokiness would become more gentle.

It was incredibly fun, yet for all the positives I have to say about the experience, here comes the bad part, and I really hate to break it to you guys - I've ruled out ever becoming a whisky blender for an occupation.

As much fun as it was, it's ruled out any possibility of me taking up a job as a whisky blender - the evidence of my lack of precision is obvious in the whisky droplets on the napkin.

Yep, that's right, I've gotten a taste of it, I've lost more than a couple of milliliters of amazing whisky to the table, and I have got to tell you, of all the things I thought I could be in this life, a whisky blender is not one of them.

The whole exercise really opened my eyes to just how much craftsmanship, meticulousness and creativity is involved in producing an incredible blend. Not only do you need to mentally take stock of the flavours of each component, as well as having to constantly be precise and keep track of the proportions, you've also got to have a vision of how each component would fit in in the assemblage, and be observant of how each addition can transform the entire blend. Most impressively, it necessitates the really amorphous ability to achieve harmony, a concept that as elusive as it is, is terribly obvious when it's missing. A whisky blender has to be able to create that full experience in aromas, flavours, texture and length - it's like being a cake maker, an orchestra conductor, a perfumer, an artist, a chemist, and an engineer, all rolled into one. All this is done with just various components of liquid, where unlike food, each ingredient is discernibly different, with a lobster tail and pasta quite obvious in how they'd fit in to the dish.

It really is impressive (and hard!) work that whisky blenders do!

And so with all that said, it's time for us to see the real pro at work - we'll get to try the bespoke blend that was made for Singapore-based fashionista Yoyo Cao, that was made specially for her as part of the Johnnie Walker Vault experience, by Dr Emma Walker. As mentioned, this blend was made with the same component that we got to play with earlier. Let's go!

Whisky Review: Johnnie Walker Bespoke Blend For Yoyo Cao

Tasting Notes

Aroma: This opened fresh, lifted and delicate, with these springtime florals and jasmine flowers, accompanied by orchard fruits of apples and pears. As a backdrop, there's a bed of darker, richer tones of honey and some toffee, with nuggets of candied ginger adding a light sweetness and gentle spiciness. It feels very complete with both brighter and lighter florals paired with darker, richer tones of toffee and in between some candied ginger and orchard fruits.

Taste: Immediately lots of richness comes through, with this robustness and a very satisfying punchy oomph that gives it a nice presence. The body here is filled in with manuka honey and dark honey, layered upon which are these darker tones of classical Sherried notes of leather, stewed figs and prunes, as well as raisins, bringing about a rich and concentrated fruitiness, yet mellow sweetness. There's still those brighter orchard fruits of apples which now resides towards the back. It's medium-bodied, yet really waxy, with also this sense of gentle yet raw industrial notes of smokiness and of slicked up car engines. It's really complex and also with such depth, cusping both broadness and depth, with a firm and almost slightly chewy and rich body, complete and well-saturated. It feels like a finished piece of work, with every inch of the canvas intentional and completely filled in.

Finish: Long, deep finish here, summoning a deep yet soothing, all encompassing warmth. That richness and gentle spiciness of candied ginger decked with thick honey, along with the rawness of some industrial notes of diesel persists into the finish. It's incredibly rich, with also deeper and darker tones of caramel, and as it recedes some oiliness begins to emerge, before a lingering saltiness of sea spray.

My Thoughts

Wow! I was incredibly impressed by this expression! It delivered so much complexity, depth, with great intensity that gave it such a presence, layered and composed perfectly with brighter florals, cascading all the way down through fresh orchard fruits, from honey to caramel and toffee, and into darker tones of stewed figs and prunes, as well as leather, and also nailing that textural element of having this slightly chewy waxiness that we all love, and along the way showcasing these multi-faceted dimensions of sea spray saltiness and industrial rawness. This is quite something else, I can definitively say this is amongst the best expressions I've tasted.

It brings you on such a journey, and feels like such a complete expression with such finesse, where you've got layers after layers that brings you through different tones, all whilst maintaining a firm and energetic body, with also richness of texture, flavour structure, and all of it being so harmonious. It felt completely seamless as one, and yet there was so much nuances to be appreciated. For all the hallmarks of an incredible whisky, this nails every single qualifier perfectly. It once again cements to me the remarkable craftsmanship of Johnnie Walker's blending, now with such a firsthand grasp on how difficult it is to get it right and yet when done right, you immediately know it. Times like these, I have to admit that this whisky reminds me of what a perfectly created blend can achieve that transcends the singularity of a single malt.

For real though, I hope Yoyo will spot me some of her bespoke blend - this was absolutely breathtaking. Phenomenal.