The 4.2 on this bottle, I feel, probably has a lot to do with not living up to the hype rather than the actual experience of drinking what is undoubtedly a great scotch. For most of us who worked our way up the Johnny ladder as we could afford them, the first time you try Blue can be like finding out that Santa Clause isn't real. It's not that it's not a great scotch--it's just not that much better than even Johnny Green. Now if you really know how to drink scotch you can obviously write a novel on the difference, it's just that the leap forward doesn't seem as far from the far side of the canyon between Platinum and Blue.