Johnnie Walker Toasts the Year of the Dragon With an Artsy New Bottle of Its Blue Label Whisky

Next month marks the start of the Lunar New Year , and 2024 is the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac. To mark the occasion, Johnnie Walker released a limited edition expression of its top tier Blue Label blend, and collaborated with Asian American artist James Jean to design the new bottle.

Jean was born in Taipei, raised in New Jersey, and currently lives in Los Angeles where he has collaborated with directors on promotional film posters as well as working on his own visual art. For the Johnnie Walker Year of the Dragon bottle design, he drew his inspiration from tradition and symbolism of the Wood Dragon.

“Many consider the dragon the most powerful animal in the Chinese Zodiac and the Wood Dragon felt remarkably close to me because of the natural elements prevalent in my own work,” he said in a statement. “Evolved from traditional depictions of Chinese dragons, my dragon is composed of flowers and organic elements, from which emerge tendrils and arcing lines, evoking the idea of roots and connection.” The liquid in the bottle is the same as the core Blue Label, the pinnacle expression in the lineup.

But each year Johnnie Walker works with a new artist to come up with a different design to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and this year the flavors that master blender Emma Walker brought to the table influenced Jean’s work as much as history and tradition. Blue Label is created by selecting some of the “rarest” casks from parent company Diageo’s many distilleries, along with whisky from some long shuttered ghost distilleries that can never be replicated—just one in every 10,000 casks make the cut for this expression, according to the brand.

Official tasting notes for this whisky include spice, vanilla, honey, caramel, hazelnut, and dark chocolate on the palate. You can find the new Blue Label Year of the Dragon (SRP $270) available now from ReserveBar , as well as the rest of the Johnnie Walker lineup . Flicker is currently Robb Report's whiskey critic, writing a weekly review of the most newsworthy releases around.

He is a freelance writer covering the spirits industry whose work has appeared in….