actually, the Red & the Black are the lower end Johnnies. the Blue is one of their higher end offerings. it is an NAS (no age statement) blend selling around $180. good, but not worth the money imho. if I'm going to spend that kind of money (rarely) there are certainly better choices.
there is also a Blue Ghost and Rare expression, I haven't had that (it's north of $400 a bottle). it's still an NAS whisky, but includes old whiskies from Port Ellen (a legendary & now shuttered Isla distillery), also Caledonian & Carsebridge (also shuttered distilleries). These are blended with whisky from Mortlach, Dailuaine, Cragganmore, Blair Athol & Oban.
along with Brora, Port Ellen was closed down back in the early 1980's. Diageo is building a new distilleries for Port Ellen and rebuilding the Brora distillery.
https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/in-depth/16389/the-resurrection-of-port-ellen-and-brora/both will supposedly open around 2020 - and also supposedly recreate the original whiskies as closely as possible. I haven't had Port Ellen but it's revered in the whisky world (as is Brora). Diageo still releases liquid from both distilleries annually but at very costly prices. These whiskies come from stocks that were made before the distilleries were closed down. I have had Brora (from an independent bottling, not the Diageo releases, and much less expensive, though still costly) and it was pretty spectacular.
Clynelish is a sister distillery to Brora, and located next door. It is one of my favorite single malts. It's a delicate, floral whisky - very different from Brora which was a lightly peated Highland whisky. Gets confusing because Brora was originally called Clynelish until the 1960's when they built the new 'Clynelish' distillery next door and changed the name of the original distillery to Brora.