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Friday, June 2, 2023

Bunnahabhain 10 year old, Distillery Exclusive cask 3201

Hand-filled and purchased by Doctors Springbank and Springbank during their Bunnahabhain distillery visit two years ago, today's bottling holds ten-year-old single malt matured in a Manzanilla cask in Bunnahabhain's warehouse 9. We opened and tried this bottle in 2021, and it liked it A LOT. Because it held all of 200mL of whisky, the bottle is now empty, and the Doctors were very generous to share about 1/4 of it with me. Here is my official take on it, 18 months later.


Distillery: Bunnahabhain
Owner: Distell Group Limited
Region: Islay
Age: 10 years (???? - ????)
Maturation: Manzanilla cask
Cask #: 3201
Exclusive to: the distillery
Alcohol by Volume: 55.1%
(Thank you Drs. Springbank!)

NEAT

It noses like actual sherry, unlike the vast vast vast majority of sherry cask whiskies on this planet. There are walnuts, dried mushrooms, and parmesan. Dried apples, dried apricots, copper, and dead leaves. The palate hold loads of dried fruit essences, without all the sweetness. I'm getting unsulfured dried apricots, dried cherries, and ume right up front, earth and tobacco in the back. The very long finish is a near facsimile of the palate, with a touch more herbal bitterness.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose has gotten meatier and mintier, with new notes of tar and dried currants arising. More dried leaves and herbal bitterness in the palate now. Still plenty of dried fruits, now prunes and dried pineapple. It finishes with those dried fruits and a yeasty lager.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

A whisky for sherry drinkers. Because I enjoy nosing dry sherries, this whisky offers one of my favorite Bunna noses ever. The neat palate includes some actual Bunnahabhain in its delivery, while the diluted palate starts to slide towards a more popular, familiar style of sherried single malt. My preference is to keep this one neat, but folks thrown off by the full strength dry style will want to wet it down. I hope one of you readers got your hands on a wee bottle of this too!

Availability - Sold out
Pricing - ???
Rating - 88