$27,000 Scotch comes to town

[Gifted Gourmet]

article from Canada Post

This week in Toronto, Johnnie Walker flew in its Scotland-based master blender, Jim Beveridge, to conduct tastings of the colour gamut. That's the public relations hook for Mr. Beveridge's visit: A tasting of his Johnnie Walker 1805 blend, a ridiculously expensive and rare mix of nine near-extinct whiskies, to mark the birth of founder John Walker. And the 1805 blend? It was very, very smooth, and Mr. Beveridge's PR handles were raving about it as we passed the $500 shot around the room.

An interesting article ...

[slkinsey]

If I had discovered a trove of nine extremely rare "near-extinct" single malts, the very last thing I would consider doing is blending them together. Now, I'm not a total single malt snob (Compass Box makes some amazing blends), but to my mind this is like finding an amazing rare old Bordeaux in good condition and deciding to make "the world's most expensive sangria" with it. Well, maybe not quite that bad... but that's the idea.

Of course, if you only have 75 liters of these rare single malts all told, and you can blend them together along with 75 liters of neutral spirits and still charge twenty-seven large for 750 mils -- that's a pretty good racket.