Keep It in the Family

Here's the thing worth knowing before you reach for it. The bottle most like Royal Salute 21, for less money, shares its surname. Chivas Regal 18, $125, gives a Royal Salute 21 drinker about 85% of what their own bottle does. Same house, most of the experience, a fair bit less at the till.

Now, what would the drinkers of the bottles nearest Royal Salute 21 pay for it — each of them starting from what they already pay for their own? A Chivas Regal 18 drinker would pay about $99, which is 79% of what their own bottle costs them, marking Royal Salute 21 down for the name on the label and for being older than theirs. Turn it around and a Royal Salute 21 drinker puts Chivas at about 85% of their own, marking it down for the label and for being younger. Across the drinkers of the bottles nearest it, the answers run from $99 to $161. At $210, Royal Salute 21 sits above all of them: priced for its fans.

So what are you actually pouring? Royal Salute 21 wears its years well. Masses of orchard fruit on the nose, a hint of passion fruit alongside, and oak that comes across rounded and supple rather than sharp. Add a drop of water and a soft banana note is released. The palate is thick and chewy, with more grip than the nose lets on, and it finishes on a little nut. Great maturity, and, frankly, great blending.

Two near things, if you fancy a change — and the interest is in how they differ, not how they match.

Johnnie Walker 18, usually around $179, is the closest in the glass but the furthest in character: complex and elegant, with woodsmoke off a bonfire of green twigs, vanilla cream, and honey drizzled over baked apples, then golden syrup flapjacks, candied apricot and a catch of smoke into the finish. To a Royal Salute 21 drinker it gives about 91% of what the Royal Salute does, for 85% of its price.

Chivas Regal 18, $125, is the family stand-in, and the one that leans the same way: vanilla, almond slice, toffee and pencil shavings on the nose, then malt, dark fudge, leather and raisin warming up slowly before oak and chocolate take over. To a Royal Salute 21 drinker it gives about 85% of what the Royal Salute does, for 60% of the price.

So, who's it for?

If Royal Salute 21 is already your bottle, $210 is the price this week — pour it and sit with the orchard fruit and that supple oak, which is the whole point of it.

If you're a Chivas Regal 18 drinker eyeing the older sibling, you already know roughly where you stand: more years, same blending bench, and by your own reckoning you'd price it close to your own bottle anyway. No surprises up there.

And if you're a Johnnie Walker 18 drinker, the swap runs easily either way — two polished blends from the top of the range that differ mostly in the room they're pouring in. The Johnnie brings the woodsmoke and honeyed apples; the Royal Salute keeps to orchard fruit and that long, rounded oak. Pick your weather.

Whichever way you go, you're staying in good company.