Johnnie Walker Black Label has a reputation for quality. It’s served at business dinners, gifted to clients, stocked by hotels that want to signal sophistication. The brand carries decades of accumulated prestige.
It’s also not particularly good whisky.
That’s not a bug — it’s the business model. Reputation is a lagging indicator. It reflects what a thing was, not what it is. As long as most consumers can’t tell the difference, the gap between signal and substance is exploitable indefinitely. Luxury goods entire market structure is built on this: the product is the brand. The contents are secondary.