SMOS Director's Sp. Bunnahabhain 43 Year

Tasting Notes

Andrew's Tasting Note

Nose: old and antique-y, shades of the Port Askaig 45 Year (another sherried old Bunna); dark chocolate shavings on cappuccino foam; subtly floral with delicate tropical fruit tones.

Palate: it shines on the palate, old and antique-y, but far from over oaked; soft leather, dark chocolate shavings and licorice allsorts; a trace of treacle sauce and maple syrup but moving mostly in the tropical fruits direction: ripe mango, papaya and bananas just about to turn.

Finish: soft, fruity and toasty it caresses the palate and leaves the mouth watering in anticipation of more.

Comment: an exercise in subtlety and complexity it reminds me most of the Port Askaig 45 Year, just not quite as tropical; lots of layers to this elegant old malt.

Producer Tasting Note

Nose: A stack of fruit tumbles out of the glass. A breakfast buffet of Danish pastries and fresh fruit salad: mango, green banana, crème patissiere, caramelised pastry and slices of candied lemon. Sweet floral notes float above and sharper citrus notes of grapefruit zest and lemon rind swim beneath. Spiced butter develops with time
in the glass.

Palate: A flash of elegant oak leads into a world of warming spice. Stewed apples and pears dusted with nutmeg and hot cinnamon fade to reveal a damp forest of rich rancio. The spice heat calms and spiced cake batter appears, stirred through with raisins.

Finish: Sponge-cake vanilla becomes stewed apple that slowly sharpens as it is joined by softly spiced butter.

Distillery

Originally written by Evan for a blog post relating to KWM's 2020 Whisky Calendar.

Bunnahabhain Distillery is the northernmost distillery on Islay – it lays off the beaten path and is somewhat remote even when compared to the rest of the island. The distillery was actually only reachable by boat until the 1960s, when a road was finally built to it. Bunnahabhain is one of a trio of Scottish Single Malt Distilleries owned by Burn Stewart (Distell Group).

Burn Stewart and its parent company also own Tobermory Distillery on the Isle of Mull which we discussed on both on Day Four and Day Seventeen. and Deanston Distillery which resides on the Scottish mainland in Perthshire. Like its siblings, most of the flagship single malts Bunnahabhain range are bottled unchill-filtered and with no added colouring at the curious but commendable strength of 46.3% ABV.

Like many Scottish distilleries, Bunnahabhain is a Gaelic name. It translates to "the foot of the river".

This Islay distillery was founded in 1881 and started its life making the heavily peated whisky that the region is famous for. For most of its history its whisky was exclusively used in blends such as Black Bottle, and even today only a fraction of its production is bottled as a single malt. In 1963 production was increased and at the same time the distillery’s style was changed to the lighter, unpeated single malt whisky it is known for today. Since 1997 there have been small amounts of heavily peated (35 PPM malt spec) single malt made each year but it is not what the distillery is known for. 

The core of Bunnahabhain’s production and lineup doesn’t show very noticeable peat if it shows at all as they use a malt spec with a maximum phenolic level of 2 PPM. This makes it one of the more gently peated Islay single malts available. The distillery and its whisky are sometimes referred to as the ‘Gentle Giant of Islay’ What it lacks in smoke and peat it typically makes up for in nuanced and complex character and plenty of sherry cask influence, at least in official bottlings.