Every Johnnie Walker Blue Label Limited Edition – Part 1

One of the most popular and rarest whiskies on the market, Johnnie Walker Blue Label is the premium expression from Johnnie Walker, the world’s best-selling whisky brand. A luxury blend representing a combination of Scotland’s rarest and most exceptional whiskies, Johnnie Walker Blue Label, has attained continuing worldwide acclaim. Blue Label limited-editions and variant blends constitute the majority of the Johnnie Walker brand’s premium special-edition releases – with approximately 300 different Blue Label bottlings. The Johnnie Walker brand has collaborated with a variety of traditional and contemporary artists and designers to produce many of the limited and unique Blue Label designs, featuring distinctive and vibrant artwork, some with production runs of only 100 bottles.

Exploring every Johnnie Walker Blue Label limited edition bottling, this multi-part article aims to provide the ultimate guide to Blue Label expressions, highlighting sought-after series and unique collectibles. This first article examines the original Blue Label, the popular Ghost & Rare series, and the early special releases between 1992-2012.

Johnnie Walker Original Blue Label

Johnnie Walker Blue Label was originally released as the travel retail exclusive, ‘Johnnie Walker Oldest’ in 1992, before the expression was rebranded as Blue Label in 1994. When first launched as ‘Oldest’, the earliest bottlings carried the statement ‘Aged 15-60 Years’, a notation which was removed from the label when the whisky was rebranded with Johnnie Walker’s colored label-themed branding.

The Blue Label blend was designed to recreate the style and flavors of classic early 19th-century whisky blends, combining casks sourced from Diageo’s malt and grain distilleries across Scotland – including rare casks from closed and demolished ‘ghost’ distilleries. The first small batches allegedly included old Caol Ila, Royal Lochnagar, and Mortlach malts, with grain whisky sourced from the now-demolished Port Dundas distillery. 

A continuously evolving blend, the modern Blue Label’s core single malts are supplied from the Benrinnes, Cardhu, Clynelish, and Caol Ila distilleries, with grain whisky from Cameron Bridge. It has also been reported that Blue Label contains an unusually high malt whisky content of 80%. Originally the travel exclusive Blue Label was bottled at 43% ABV, however, this was reduced to 40% ABV when the blend was introduced to high street retailers in 2000. 

Despite its premium status, the modern Blue Label carries no age statement, although the whiskies used for blending are alleged to range in age from seven to fifty years old, with only one in every 10,000 casks selected for the blend. Each Blue Label bottling is numbered serially, and packaged in a silk-lined presentation box accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Johnnie Walker Blue Label King George V 

In 2007, the first Johnnie Walker King George V decanter was released in the travel retail market, to celebrate the Royal Warrant awarded to John Walker & Sons by the King in 1934. Bottled as a Blue Label travel exclusive special release at 43% ABV, the King George V blend comprises some of the oldest and rarest whiskies from Diageo’s distilleries which were operational in the King’s reign. The blend is reported to contain whisky sourced from the Cardhu, Royal Lochnagar, and Port Ellen distilleries.

Emphasizing the blend’s exclusivity, certain bottles of the Blue Label King George V were available to purchase in luxury boxes, including a light-up presentation pedestal box and a backgammon suitcase. The later Johnnie Walker King George V bottlings were not bottled under the ‘Blue Label’ name, expanding into a separate range of collectible and travel retail exclusives including releases to celebrate John Walker & Sons bicentenary and Chinese New Year – presented in various designs and colored presentation boxes.

Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost & Rare

In 2017, Diageo launched the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost & Rare range, a series of blends celebrating Scotland’s whisky heritage and honoring the company’s closed distilleries. Each Blue Label Ghost & Rare expression blends eight whiskies, structuring the blend around a core whisky from a ‘ghost’ distillery that is lost and demolished. 

The Ghost & Rare series blends combine whisky from three ghost distilleries and five rare whiskies, with the 1st Edition led by whisky from Brora, and bottled at 46% ABV. Since 2017, another four Ghost & Rare expressions focusing on ‘ghost whiskies’ from Port Ellen, Glenury Royal, Pittyviach, and Port Dundas were released, each bottled at 43.8% ABV.

Celebrating John Walker & Sons 200th anniversary, the limited-edition Blue Label: Legendary Eight was released in 2020. Legendary Eight was created using only whiskies from eight distilleries that existed when John Walker established his business in 1820, including whisky from a number of ‘ghost distilleries’. The Legendary Eight blend combines whiskies from the Oban, Blair Athol, Lagavulin, Teaninich, Brora, Cambus, Port Dundas, and Carsebridge distilleries, with the expression bottled at 43.8% ABV.

Special Editions 1992-2012

As Johnnie Walker Blue Label was originally a travel exclusive, for the blend’s first decade (1992-2002) there are only two known limited releases. The first was released in celebration of the 125th anniversary of Kilmarnock Football Club with only 125 bottles released in 1994, while referencing brand founder John Walker’s Kilmarnock origins. The second expression, Blue Label: The Signature was a larger 100cl bottle released for travel retail, numbering 20,000 bottles.

In 2005, two bottlings were released in honor of the bicentenary of John Walker’s birth. The 1805 Celebration Blend, was created from nine whiskies aged from 45 to 70 years old and bottled at 46.3% ABV with only 200 bottles released. The second larger release, Blue Label: Baccarat was bottled in a Baccarat crystal decanter featuring a stopper engraved with a profile of John Walker, and containing a cask strength version of the Blue Label blend, bottled at 60.5% ABV, with only 4000 decanters produced.

From 2006, three Johnnie Walker Blue Label special releases honored individuals including poet Robert Burns (2006) and World Champion golfer, Greg Norman (2011, only 20,000 bottles). The Blue Label: Gerard Scarfe was a larger 100cl bottling released in 2009, featuring a limited-edition print of Johnnie Walker’s iconic ‘Striding Man’ reimagined by cartoonist and illustrator, Gerard Scafe – with allegedly only 100 bottles with print produced. The Blue Label: Cask Editions a travel retail exclusive bottled at 55.8% ABV cask strength was introduced in 2012, with an alternative packing edition released in the Asian market.

In 2011, Johnnie Walker partnered with Porsche Design Studio, the luxury design company founded by original Porche 911 designer, Ferdinand Alexander Porche in 1972. The partnership resulted in multiple limited Blue Label presentation boxes, including a glass and ice bucket box, and a £100,000 private home bar – only 50 were ever produced.