With the Christmas season almost upon us, I’m
looking back this week to last year when I was lucky enough to receive
something interesting from my sister and family. There will be more Christmas
themed posts in the coming weeks, so keep coming back for those.
I’d been hoping to
receive a Caol Ila 12 or (in all fairness) anything
for Christmas 2014, but was still pleasantly
surprised to receive this, having wanted to try the standard Bunnahabhain for a
while anyway – it being one of the two distilleries we didn’t get to visit
during our Distilgrimage adventure
on Islay back in 2013.
I’d had a single
glass previously, thanks to David, and had even received a 32 year oldmerchant bottling as a present the previous year. That one made it into my
3 spirits of the year in 2014, but a proper appraisal of Bunnahabhain’s
flagship bottling was long past due.
Of particular
interest with regard to this 12 year old Islay is that Bunnahabhain have very
much bucked the recent trend and actually increased
the alcohol content from 40 to 46.3 and added the benefit of non-chill
filtration – these developments coming as recently as 2010, and it’s still
available at around the £40 mark. I won’t be able to comment on what it was
like before, but these developments can really only be positive, so we’ll just
take it for what it is.
Online user reviews
are plentiful and the vast majority are extremely positive. Sure, there are one
or two detractors as there always will be, but in the main the Bunnahabhain is
very much a peoples favourite – revered alongside one of my favourites, the HighlandPark 12.
The pre-teen
Bunnahabain is presented in a stubby, dark and sturdy bottle plastered with
seaman – I mean, featuring an image of a seaman on the label. I don’t find it
all that appealing in terms of presentation, but that’s ok.
For an Islay, it’s
fairly unusual (though not unique) in that it is unpeated – though some people
still claim to find tastes of peat in there – and the distiller uses an
underground water source that apparently ensures the influence of Islay’s peat
bogs is kept out. Ageing takes place in ex-sherry casks, and that influence can
be seen in the nice dark red colour of the spirit.
I’m sorry to have to
admit that my olfactory senses have failed me somewhat, and I wasn’t able to
detect anything on the nose – it seemed almost entirely odourless to me. On the
palate though, it is gentle and delicate with a good alcohol burn. There’s a sherry
sweetness, then vanilla, then a nice woody finish. As it is unpeated, you can
potentially drink it earlier in the evening without worrying about whether it
will dominate anything you decide to follow it with.
I had a couple of
different experiences over the life of the bottle. Initially I would drink the
first half of my glass straight – there is an initial sweetness that you don’t
want to interfere with, then add a drop of water when the burn started to take
over. This seemed to rejuvenate the glass and take me back to the start, also
bringing out an orangey tone. That became almost an automatic practice for a
while. Later though, when it was one of my first drinks after being on alert
for driving to the hospital, I tried it without water entirely and
enjoyed it more than ever. I started to wonder why I’d ever thought adding
water was going to be a good idea, and proceeded to finish the bottle neat. It
was quite frustrating in the end then, as I had to start questioning how many
glasses I’d wasted. That has very much been a recurring theme over the last
couple of years, and influenced now by the Bunnahabhain 12, I’ve stopped adding
water to anything, and that’s serving me well for the timebeing.
Conclusions then.
The Bunnahabhain 12 makes a fine addition to Islay’s renowned output, and is a
good introduction to the distillery style. As a standard, entry-level
expression it is classy and tasty – not as impressive as the geriatric merchant
bottling of previous experience, but not as expensive either. It doesn’t have
to be peaty to be impressive and, while I do favour smoky whiskies in the main,
it’s nice to mellow out with something different once in a while. And this
makes a good value purchase.
Now, I think I’ll be
returning to Islay on the blog next week, as I reappraise an old favourite, the
Caol Ila 12. See you then, hopefully.
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