“In for a penny, in for a pound.”
The last whisky-based experience of our Edinburgh trip was the most likely to go horribly wrong. I like Johnnie Walker Black, and I have been lucky enough to try Johnnie Walker Blue, but I have never loved the brand nor felt that moved to try more of their whiskies. Their brand has always felt to me to be style over substance, but when in Rome (or in this case, Edinburgh). So, with expectations firmly set to very low, we paid our money, completed our flavour profile questionnaire and set off into the unknown. (Yes – that is a reference to Disney’s Frozen 2. An excellent film that is much overlooked and much better than the original.)
Tour Style: I have not been to Disneyland, but I imagine that the feeling I had at the Johnnie Walker Experience is not that far off from what it feels like for a nine-year-old child to disembark into the magic kingdom. Straight from the get-go, our guide had a beautiful, extra, theatrical vibe. He carried a cane and gave off a very Willy Wonka vibe the whole time, which thawed even my grumpy heart.
We were treated to a dance performance that taught us all about the history of the company, a tasting room, where we were given a hand-selected whisky highball matched to our own flavour profiles, an interactive film exhibit that took us through the whisky production process and flowed along the walls around us, a video tour of scotland that showed us all the distilleries that make up Johnnie walker and we even had whisky bubbles blown at us. All of that before sitting down in a room complete with an old-fashioned machine, where we got to choose from a menu of drinks and cocktails.
Tasting: The tasting was more of a brief visit to a cocktail lounge, where we sampled different Johnnie Walkers mixed into a variety of yummy cocktails. I could have honestly spent a long time in this part and was only disappointed by being shepherded out against my will.
Overall: I would wholeheartedly recommend the signature tour to everyone. It was all big, silly fun, and I honestly loved it. I might even be forced to return, to give one of the other tours a go, or to sit in the bar that we didn’t have time to go in.
Link: https://www.johnniewalker.com/en-gb/visit-us-princes-street