Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ice Chalet is a Good Scotch

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

Forget the celebrity name behind this new whisky. No disrespect to Priyanka Chopra Jonas, I have nothing against her. But her involvement, such as it is, is a gimmick, it doesn’t really matter, it’s irrelevant to what’s in the bottle. And the fact is that what’s in this particular bottle—Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ice Chalet—is quite good, but it has nothing to do with the apres ski theme, the collab with lifestyle brand Perfect Moment, or Chopra Jonas.

Johnnie Walker is the best known and best selling blended scotch whisky brand in the world. It’s made by Diageo, so that means the whisky makers, led by master blender Dr. Emma Walker, have 28 malt and two grain distilleries in Scotland to work with (which make about 40 percent of all the whisky produced there). If you’re a whisky drinker, you’ve certainly tasted Johnnie Walker Black or Red before, the two lowest blends on the brand’s totem pole. Black Label is a classic for a reason, combining smokey and sweet flavors into something that’s super easy to drink even if you’re totally new to the category. On the other end of the spectrum there’s Blue Label, the peak expression that sells for close to $200 per bottle. The reason for that is, according to the brand, that this whisky uses just one in every 10,000 casks in the blend, including some from Diageo’s coveted ghost distilleries.

There have been other versions of Blue Label, like the Elusive Umami expression that came out last year. The difference between them really comes down to which whiskies are used in the blend, a meticulous selection process led by Dr. Walker (no relation to Johnnie). In other words, change up the proportions of whiskies used and the distilleries they come from, and you’ve got a different blend. That can vary slightly or greatly, and in the case of Ice Chalet the effect is subtle but significant.

Walker used whiskies from some of Diageo’s “most northern and highest altitude” distilleries in this blend, including Brora, Clynelish, and Dalwhinnie. Does that really matter? That’s hard to say, but those are all good distilleries in their own right and it certainly helps the marketing message. The specific casks that were used likely have a bigger impact, which are as follows: refill American oak, rejuvenated heavily charred casks, ex-American oak bourbon barrels, and some wine and sherry casks. I asked Walker to explain a bit more about what went into this whisky, and she got into a bit more detail about her and whisky specialist and blender George Harper’s process. “We searched the Met Office data to find casks that were distilled in the depths of some of Scotland’s coldest winters,” she told Robb Report. “We’re lucky to be able to select from over 29 distilleries to create this scotch whisky, including Speyside single malts such as Cardhu and Benrinnes, Highland malts such as Clynelish, lowland grain whiskies including those from Port Dundas, and then we also bring in smoky notes from Islay’s Caol Ila and Port Ellen.”

It’s hard to tell exactly how Ice Chalet differs from regular Blue Label without trying them both side by side, but this version is very tasty and stands on its own. The palate veers towards the fruitier end of the spectrum with very little smoke. Notes of ripe apple, fresh stone fruit, and dark berries lead the way, along with classic Johnnie Walker flavors like vanilla, caramel, baking spice, and a splash of citrus. I suspect that three casks in particular give Ice Chalet its core character: heavily charred, wine, and sherry. There is a bit of oaky smoke on the palate along with whiffs of peat, and the sherry and wine barrels contribute tannins and some dried fruit.

The marketing materials for Ice Chalet urge you to drink this whisky neat, straight from the freezer at exactly 23 degrees, over a block of ice “to enhance the richness and thicken the consistency.” Go ahead and give that a try, but I think this is better simply served in a Glencairn at room temperature. They also suggest making a perfect Manhattan with the whisky, which I’m all for except I would probably leave out the peppermint and blue matcha meringue garnish, even if I happened to have some extra blue matcha sitting around. Even if you’re a seasoned whisky drinker who eschews Blue Label for exotic and ultra-aged single malts, let’s acknowledge that it’s still a solid high-end blend that always delivers. This new formulation is worth a try, even if you are not a skier or a fan of Chopra Jonas’s Baywatch reboot.

Score: 88