Since its founding in 1820, Johnnie Walker has found success by leaning on innovation and refusing to follow the straight and narrow. The willingness to try something new was baked into the brand’s DNA by its founder, John Walker, who started mixing Scottish whiskey in their store to suit the customers’ tastes. His unique blends quickly found fans, and today the brand is the world’s best-selling Scotch whisky, available in over 180 countries.

The backbone of the brand is its red and black Scotch whiskey packaged in distinctive square bottles with off-kilter labels. Affordable and perfect straight up or mixed into cocktails, they’re a mainstay in back bars the world over. However, it was the brand’s release of Blue Label in 1992 that really set Johnnie Walker apart from the rest of the pack.

As one of the first luxury whiskey brands, Blue Label’s release sent shock waves through the global whiskey market. Drinkers went wild for it, and Blue Label helped usher in the luxury spirits market that thrives today. If you love to seek out high-end tequila, bourbon or other spirits, you owe Johnnie Walker a debt of gratitude.

While the Diageo-owned brand has leaned heavily on limited editions and artist collaborations for its Blue Label over the past few decades, it has rarely changed the liquid mix inside each bottle. Instead, it has kept the blend, scrapped and made from Diageo’s 11 million casks of aging whiskey from over 30 distilleries, the same. While that pleased Blue Label aficionados, it seemed to go against a company that proudly says its goal is to keep going.

So the brand did what it does best: it pushed its own limits and created something completely different. In 2023, they teamed up with Michelin-starred chef Kei Kobayashi to create Johnnie Walker Blue Label Elusive Umami. Made from a new blend that highlights epicureanism, the limited edition bottle received rave reviews and showed the brand that its fans were looking for something different. Plans were made to follow up the release with another new mix.

They decided to do something unexpected and unexpected with their latest limited edition, which hit the market in October. The Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ice Chalet was created in collaboration with the luxury skiwear and lifestyle brand Perfect moment and Priyanka Chopra to sip on the après ski slope. Unlike any other high-end whisky, it is designed to be enjoyed ice cold straight from the freezer or over a large ice cube. Made from whiskey selected from around one of 25,000 casks in Diageo’s liquid library, it’s a rare sip.

“To create a whiskey for Blue Hour and After-Ski, Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ice Chalet incorporates whiskeys from several distilleries, including whiskeys distilled in Scotland’s coldest months over the past 20 years, including whiskey from Dalwhinnie – our highest altitude distillery. When winter temperatures are this cold, we distill and condense more complex, viscous spirits that, when matured and blended, work perfectly in frozen and chilled serving,” says Emma Walker, Johnnie Walker’s Master Blender.

“In addition, we use an incredible expression from Clynelish, our most northerly Highland distillery. It is renowned for its light, fruity and waxy character, which retains rich, fruity notes and textures even when chilled. Serving Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ice Chalet cold emphasizes these fresher, floral, refined flavors while building notes of vanilla and spiced orchard fruits.”

If the idea that a Scottish brand would recommend you enjoy one of their most exclusive bottles ice-cold seems unnatural, it is. However, it is part of the mindset that has helped Johnnie Walker thrive over the past few decades. Due to the brand being a mixing house from day one, they have never been tied down to one place. Instead, it has been able to shift when necessary and follow the direction it deems best. As one of the crown jewels of the Diageo empire, the brand is encouraged to push its boundaries.

Blue Label Ice Chalet comes at an important time for the brand. Their highly successful Keep Walking marketing campaign has just turned 25^Th years and has helped create an image of forward progress and positivity around the 205-year-old brand. The brand has announced plans to lean into its messaging going forward, with a heavy emphasis on introducing its scotch to the Millennial and Gen Z populations.

They recently staged a live commercial during the 2024 Emmy Awards and announced a special bottle release with Netflix to coincide with the upcoming release of Squid Games Season 2. Released during the pandemic, the series was a breakout hit, and anticipation is high for new season. They have also recently released several new products, including Hye Rye and Black Ruby, aimed at the global cocktail culture. In addition, they lean towards sustainability with a lighter bottle design and one of the world’s first paper-based bottles.

On top of that opened the Johnnie Walker brand Prince Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. As the first “permanent” home for the brand, it offers fans of the whiskey a physical place to visit to delve deeper into the brand’s history. Housed in the heart of Edinburgh, the eight-storey venue offers visitors several interactive tour experiences, retail and two rooftop bars/restaurants. According to the brand, it has been an overwhelming success, welcoming over one million visitors from 141 countries in the three years since its opening.

They say that for a company to remain successful, or in Johnnie Walker’s case, on top, it can’t rest on its laurels. Well, it seems they certainly don’t and instead are aggressively leaning forward with innovations and creative new ways to introduce their century-old scotch to the world. As the brand likes to say, it’s always focused on making sure they keep going, and it looks like they’re doing just that.

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