There's a theme to each week's reviews. This week's theme? Some Random Stuff.
Once upon a time, Bunnahabain's official range included the 12yo, 18yo and 25yo. Now, according to their official site, there are 23 current releases. Is this progress? I don't know. But their 12 year is still excellent. Today's whisky is a young heavily-peated Bunny that spent its entire life in red wine casks from the Bordeaux region. I predict intensity.
Distillery: Bunnahabhain
Ownership: Distell Group Ltd.
Region: Islay, but not the Dirty South
Age: 9 years (18 Dec 2008 - 26 Feb 2018)
Maturation: Bordeaux red wine casks
Outturn: 4536 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 58.1%
Chillfiltered? No
Caramel Colorant? No
(Thank you to Matt for the sample!)
NEAT
There's dark chocolate, peanut butter, ham and rubber smoke in the nose. Beneath that: mixed berry jam, cinnamon candy and dried cherries. With 20+ minutes in the glass, the rubbery smoke turns leafy. Salty burnt seaweed leads the palate, followed by grape jelly and bitter chocolate. Then cayenne pepper and bus exhaust. It picks up some fruit sweetness and lime juice, with some time in the glass. Madness in the finish. Bus exhaust, limes, berry candy, peanuts, burnt paper and mild bitterness.
That was a lot. Let's tone it down?
DILUTED TO ~46%, or > 1½ tsp of water per 30mL whisky
Yeah, the nose does calm down and the separate parts merge: chocolatey peat, lemons, cloves, cinnamon and peanuts. Water has washed most of the wine away in the palate. Peated peanut butter, cinnamon and wood smoke lead the way, followed by smaller notes of citrus, berries and sugar. Simple sweet smoke, nuts and fresh berries in the finish.
WORDS WORDS WORDS
The good news is Bunnahabhain isn't tying itself to one simplistic distillery character. On the other hand, what is this stuff?
It's pretty wild, though it's not bad. In fact, I'd take this over most of the countless immature 5-8 year old single casks the indies are currently dumping onto the market. If you hate winey whiskies — whether your palate or a whisky blogger has told you so — just add water to this thing and then worry not. If you want violence, then don't dilute it.
I'm baffled by the whiskybase scores for this whisky. Or maybe everyone's just throwing around 90+ scores at this point in time. I will say this product commits fully to entertaining the drinker, but who the heck could get through a whole bottle of this stuff?
Availability - Maybe a dozen or two retailers around the world
Pricing - $100-$200, yeah I don't know either
Rating - 83