Family Resemblance

There is, and it comes from the same house. Chivas Regal XV 15 sits at $89, and to a Chivas Regal 18 drinker it gives about 93% of what their own bottle does. The nearest thing to Chivas Regal 18 for less money carries the same name, a smaller number, and a cognac cask behind it.

First, the bottle on the table. Chivas Regal 18 opens with vanilla, almond slice, toffee and a dry note of pencil shavings over sweet oak and mild wood spice. It is smooth and unhurried, warming by degrees, carrying malt, dark fudge, leather, raisin and tobacco before the oak, wood spice and chocolate come forward and the finish settles in long and warm. It is the sort of dram that makes you slow down to keep up with it.

Three bottles stand near it, and each earns its place.

Dewar's 18, usually around $131, leans lighter and drier, with toasted barley, buttered toast, heather-honey, toffee and chocolate-wrapped raisins, sweet and creamy on the palate. To a Chivas Regal 18 drinker it gives about 95% of what their own bottle does.

Johnnie Walker 18, usually around $179, brings woodsmoke and ashy peat, vanilla cream and honey over baked apples, golden syrup flapjacks and a catch of smoke that carries into the finish. To a Chivas Regal 18 drinker it gives about 94%.

Chivas Regal XV 15, usually around $89, turns to marmalade, almond and cinnamon buns, with rich dark fruit and toffee and a layer of lush fruit from the cognac cask, velvety and well knitted. To a Chivas Regal 18 drinker it gives about 93%, and it is the one from the same family.

As for what to pay, Chivas Regal 18 is $125 at Dan Murphy's this week. That works out to about $5.66 a standard drink across the roughly twenty-two in the bottle, a touch under a pint at the pub, which runs about $13 for its two standard drinks, or $6.28 each. A pour at home, in other words, costs a little less than the pub pour.

Here is the part worth sitting with. The drinkers of the bottles nearest Chivas Regal 18 were each asked what they would pay for it, starting from what they pay for their own. A Dewar's 18 drinker lands at about $109, which is 83% of what their own bottle costs them, marking Chivas down mostly for not being from the Highlands and for the sherry and dried fruit they miss. The other way round, a Chivas Regal 18 drinker puts Dewar's 18 at about 95% of their own, easing off for the same sherry and dried fruit and for the name on the label. Across all the drinkers of the bottles nearest it, the figures run from $82 to $167. At $125, this week's price sits inside what the drinkers of the bottles nearest it would pay.

So, who is it for. If Chivas Regal 18 is already your bottle, $125 is the week's number and the dram needs no defending. If you drink Dewar's 18 and want a night with more fudge, leather and dried fruit in it, Chivas rewards the move. If Johnnie Walker 18 is your usual and you fancy the same age without the smoke, this is the quieter room next door. And if you want most of what Chivas Regal 18 offers while keeping more in your pocket, its younger sibling at $89 is waiting on the same family's bench, about 93% of the way there.