Johnnie Walker "Green Label" 15 year old Pure Malt

Update: I have now seen this in a couple U.S. stores; it used to only be available in overseas markets.

As of this writing, this is the only bottle of whisky I have ever broken (and only the second bottle of liquor, with the first being a nice bottle of El Tesoro Añejo Tequila.)  Of all my bottles, though, I really couldn't have been more fortunate.  I don't like this bottle at all.  It suffers from abysmal cask management: it is overwhelmingly bitter and aspirin-like.  All the malt seems to be mediocre output from highland distilleries.  I would recommend even against cooking with it, as the bitterness might be hard to conceal.  I quite wanted to like this bottle, and tried it numerous times at different times of the day, with and without food, but in the end it's just not very good whisky.  I suppose I could have had an especially bad batch, but a friend dislikes his bottle as well (I have not tried his for comparison.)  If you, the reader, are a die hard Johnnie Walker Green fan and want to sway me from my negative opinions, send me email and we'll arrange a swap of samples (your Johnnie Walker Green for something comparable in my collection.)

I've gotten some fan mail on this review: Hazel Mountz (hazel.mountz@agedwards.com) sent me the following love note:

YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE THE TASTEBUDS OF A GNAT! GREEN IS IN THE STYLE OF THE HEAVIER LOWLAND MALTS, YOU TWIT!!

Which, you know, it's not, but hey, thanks for playing!

More astute reader Brian Middaugh writes, and seconds my experiences, as follows:

Obviously that person who sent you that "lovenote" doesn't know anything about scotch.  I also hated the taste of this one.

When I broke my bottle of it, a good malts friend got a wry smile and mourned, "Damn, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer malt." Seriously, steer clear of this one.

Mr. Matthew Torbik, self-described newcomer to scotch, calles me a twit for warning people to steer clear. But do yourself a favor: try a friend's bottle or a bar bottle first. I don't expect you'll like it. If you do, more power to you. Different strokes and all that.