As master blender for Johnnie Walker, Dr Emma Walker is ultimately responsible for every drop of the world’s most popular Scotch whisky.
Johnnie Walker sells 22 million cases of whisky annually, from the ever-reliable Black Label to prestigious hyper-aged rarities.
Inside the Johnnie Walker Vault, Dr Walker will put all of her effort into a single bottle, one that is entirely crafted to the person standing opposite her. This experience, priced at £50,000 (approx $67,000) per person, is one of the most exclusive experiences in the spirits world.
Creating whisky is commonplace for Dr Walker, but tailoring a blend to one person’s taste comes with unique challenges. Here, she tells Elite Traveler what guests can expect inside the Vault.
When someone signs up for the Johnnie Walker Vault, how do you start the process of making their perfect Scotch whisky?
There will be an in-depth questionnaire, and we can also talk over Zoom. I want to build up a complex picture and get to know the person. Then I’ll want to build a whisky beforehand, but I will know where we can take it, because different things come up in conversation when you’re in the Vault. One client in the Vault mentioned his first distillery trip was to Knockando in 1985. We looked on the shelf and found some Knockando from 1985. We added that to the blend, and it changed the flavor map and made the blend even more special.
How do you ensure the whisky is tailored to the client, but still retains Johnnie Walker’s classic style?
Johnnie Walker is famous for bold flavors, but the balance allows you to get different aspects at different points. I think that’s important. If you look at the Johnnie Walker family, we dial into different parts of the flavor map. They all have lots of flavor but all go in slightly different directions. And what I love is, the whiskies that we use in those blends, they’re the whiskies that we will be using in the Vault as well. It’ll be all the distilleries that we get to work with every day. But we’re just looking at the best expressions that we can find of these whiskies.
Our Johnnie Walker Vault blend contained something called Heart of the Blend. What is that, and will it go into every client’s final product?
This is what I love about the Vault. These are whiskies I’ve worked on before that have gone back into casks to mature further. I’ve got small parts of different blends, and they’ll become part of the jigsaw depending on the overall style. They’re not something you would normally get to see (as a consumer), so it builds another layer of storytelling into the whisky. It was quite important for me to have that in there, because it becomes quite personal. In the same way we can follow a beautiful single malt over its lifetime, it’s exciting to see how a blended Johnnie Walker changes over time. There’s still so much about the aging process that we think we know, but we don’t.
Once a client has found their perfect blend, it is made in controlled conditions. They next try it at home, several weeks later. Would you expect the tasting experience to be different?
The liquid changes during a period of marriage, but we also need time to adjust ourselves. I see that even with whisky that I know well, I will pick up different flavors at different points. Sometimes when you first try whisky, there are dominant flavors. When you become accustomed to those, you start to see the nuances underneath. Even with a slightly different temperature, there are different things going on in the whisky that mean the flavor is different. When you have your whisky in a glass, it’s oxidizing. It’s still an active liquid. Sometimes we forget that it’s not set in amber. It’s something that still develops as you’re enjoying it. That’s part of the magic.
How does it feel being the headline act on such an exclusive experience?
I think people will really enjoy developing something that’s so personal to them. When people find whiskies that they love, they become connected to them. Whenever I go on a distillery tour, I always buy a bottle in the gift shop because I feel the connection to the people who make it. Hopefully, when people join us, they will feel connected to the Johnnie Walker story, to be part of that story. The recipes that we make will go into the archive and will become part of the Johnnie Walker story. It then becomes part of who they are, and vice versa.
Elite Traveler’s Alex Martin was invited to experience the Johnnie Walker Vault in person. You can read about the experience here.