Twenty-seven blended scotches on the shelf this week, the kind you walk past in every bottle shop. The cheap end is where you go looking for a bargain. Not one of the familiar budget names is actually cheap against its own company.
Multi-regional blends are the most ordinary scotch there is: malt and grain married up from several distilleries, the Red Labels and Ballantine's and J&Bs that between them outsell every single malt put together. Twenty-seven here, a middle price near $80, a spread that runs from the low fifties up to a $366 bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue at the far end. You would expect the inexpensive blends to undercut the whiskies nearest them in style. The six most prominent this week each do the opposite. Every one asks more than the crowd of bottles the model reads as closest to it in flavour.
Take the one that asks the least over its neighbours first. Isle of Skye 8 Year Old is $64, about 14% above the roughly $56 that its ten nearest run. For a blend it carries a real whiff of island smoke, rich honey and toasted oak with peat underneath and a citrus lift at the top. That bit of Skye character is what the small premium buys, and of the six it is the one I would reach for.
1/Most of the blends shelf asks a little over fair; one bottle, Ballantine's Finest, sits exactly on its mark. I sorted all 77 blends by style, Scotch, Irish and Japanese, each priced live at Dan Murphy's. Near end: cheap grocery Scotch and Irish. Far end: Japanese and old Irish.
2/Count since the last blends thread a fortnight ago: 55 of the 77 now show a different price or a different zone against their own jury. That is 71% of the shelf. A fresh read, then, not a rerun of the 1 October one. Just a count, not a direction.
3/How I measure it: each bottle set against the consensus of its own ten-seat tasting panel, expressed as how far its price sits above that number. Every bottle here prices higher than its panel figure. So "hot" just means smallest gap above, not a deal.
4/Sitting right on the line is Ballantine's Finest, a litre at $69, level with its mean at 0%. Then Cutty Sark 700 at $59, Proper No. Twelve a litre at $91, Paddy 700 at $58, and the Johnnie Walker Red 1.125L at $79, all within 1%. Watch the sizes there.
This week I ran the whole blended-malt shelf. The vatted malts: Monkey Shoulder, Compass Box, Copper Dog, Shinobu, Chivas Ultis. Nine bottles, every one priced live at Dan Murphy's. Here's the bit that stood out: not one of them sits under fair value.
The blended-Scotch shelf offers no bargains this week, only well-known names at full price. It's the catch-all for blends from across Scotland, in no single region. Twenty-seven bottles, each priced live at Dan Murphy's. Cheap end, big-format; dear end, prestige.
Ballantine's is back on its number, anchoring the cheap end of the blend shelf. Sixty-two bottles priced live at Dan Murphy's this Thursday — the whole aisle, not a slice. Since last look, 31 of 62 have shifted price or zone. The far end? Two Hibikis and a Chivas 25.
Ballantine's Finest lands bang on its own 360° jury number this week — a 0% gap, as close to fair as this blended shelf gets. Twenty of twenty priced live at Dan Murphy's this Thursday, so it's the whole shelf. Since our last look 21 days back, 13 of the 20 moved price or zone.
If you want a blend that sits close to what its own peers reckon it's worth, look at the big litre bottles. Ballantine's Finest 1L at $69 lands dead on its CE 360° jury — zero premium, the fairest ticket on the whole blended shelf this Thursday.
Stood at the blended-Scotch bay this Thursday and the honest bottles were all down near my knees. Twenty blends on this shelf, every one priced live at Dan Murphy's, and the ones closest to fair value are the cheap old workhorses, not the boxed ones up top.
Two Scotches at their own floor this week, and the shelf's oddest near-miss. Johnnie Walker Black is $53, Lagavulin 16 is $145 — both plain shelf tickets, neither a members-only deal. Put them together and the pair is the cheapest it has been in the six weeks I have tracked it.
Every blend I looked at on this shelf costs more than the drams that taste like it. The only question is how much more.
The six biggest names on the blended shelf have one thing in common this week. Not one of them is priced at or below what its neighbours cost. The only question is how far above.
Peat shows up in blends too, and two of them this week make the label a poor guide to price. One asks $63. The other asks $102. Neither hints that the cheaper pour is the fairer buy.
| bottle | region | latest ticket | read | window price | CE 360° mean | premium | shelf rank | per std drink | drink rank | content |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballantine's Finest Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $68.90 | observed | $48.27 | $47.70 | 1.2% | #5 of 27 | $2.18 | #4 of 26 | 0 |
| Compass Box Artist Blend Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $89.99 | observed | $89.99 | $86.12 | 4.3% | #17 of 27 | $3.79 | #19 of 26 | 0 |
| Compass Box Glasgow Blend Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $89.99 | observed | $89.99 | $85.33 | 5.2% | #18 of 27 | $3.79 | #20 of 26 | 0 |
| Compass Box The Peat Monster Blended Malt Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $101.99 | observed | $101.99 | $72.70 | 28.7% | #27 of 27 | $2.76 | #15 of 26 | 0 |
| Cutty Sark Original Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $58.99 | observed | $58.99 | $57.79 | 2.0% | #9 of 27 | $2.67 | #14 of 26 | 0 |
| Dewar's 15 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $79.99 | observed | $79.99 | $65.13 | 18.6% | #25 of 27 | $3.62 | #18 of 26 | 0 |
| For Peat's Sake Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $62.99 | observed | $62.99 | $61.70 | 2.0% | #10 of 27 | $2.44 | #8 of 26 | 0 |
| Grant's Triple Wood Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $90.99 | observed | $56.62 | $54.99 | 2.9% | #12 of 27 | $2.56 | #12 of 26 | 0 |
| Isle Of Skye 8 Years Old Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $63.99 | observed | $61.99 | $56.91 | 8.2% | #23 of 27 | $2.63 | #13 of 26 | 0 |
| J&B Rare Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $52.99 | observed | $53.99 | $53.10 | 1.6% | #7 of 27 | $2.40 | #7 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $77.99 | observed | $55.97 | $51.56 | 7.9% | #21 of 27 | $2.47 | #11 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Black Label 12 | Multi-Regional Blend | $54.99 | observed | $55.90 | $51.51 | 7.8% | #20 of 27 | $2.44 | #9 of 26 | 1 |
| Johnnie Walker Black Ruby Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $52.50 | observed | $67.99 | $65.51 | 3.6% | #15 of 27 | $2.38 | #6 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Blue Indian Festive Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $286.00 | observed | $286.00 | $267.99 | 6.3% | #19 of 27 | $12.69 | #26 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch Whisky 1L | Multi-Regional Blend | $365.99 | observed | $256.19 | $234.85 | 8.3% | #24 of 27 | $10.30 | #24 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL | Multi-Regional Blend | $229.90 | observed | $239.95 | $220.63 | 8.1% | #22 of 27 | $10.41 | #25 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Double Black Blended Scotch Whisky 1L | Multi-Regional Blend | $116.99 | observed | $65.80 | $64.63 | 1.8% | #8 of 27 | $2.98 | #16 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve Blended Scotch Whisky 1L | Multi-Regional Blend | $149.99 | observed | $104.99 | $101.28 | 3.5% | #14 of 27 | $4.75 | #23 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve Blended Scotch Whisky 700mL | Multi-Regional Blend | $88.80 | observed | $88.75 | $86.16 | 2.9% | #13 of 27 | $4.02 | #21 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Green Label Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $103.99 | observed | $103.00 | $98.92 | 4.0% | #16 of 27 | $4.34 | #22 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Red Label Blended Scotch Whisky 1.125L | Multi-Regional Blend | $78.99 | observed | $49.15 | $48.64 | 1.0% | #4 of 27 | $2.22 | #5 of 26 | 0 |
| Johnnie Walker Red Label Blended Scotch Whisky 1L | Multi-Regional Blend | $64.90 | observed | $46.13 | $45.82 | 0.7% | #3 of 27 | $2.06 | #2 of 26 | 0 |
| McAllister Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $96.99 | observed | $45.26 | $45.05 | 0.5% | #1 of 27 | $2.05 | #1 of 26 | 0 |
| McAllister Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $65.95 | observed | $46.89 | $46.60 | 0.6% | #2 of 27 | $2.09 | #3 of 26 | 0 |
| Monkey Shoulder Blended Malt Scotch Whisky 1L | Multi-Regional Blend | $97.99 | observed | $80.49 | $59.77 | 25.7% | #26 of 27 | — | — | 0 |
| Pure Scot Blended Scotch Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $76.99 | observed | $71.99 | $70.10 | 2.6% | #11 of 27 | $3.48 | #17 of 26 | 0 |
| Whyte & Mackay Original Whisky | Multi-Regional Blend | $53.99 | observed | $53.99 | $53.30 | 1.3% | #6 of 27 | $2.44 | #10 of 26 | 0 |