1257 Kensington Road NW
1 (403) 283-8000 / atyourservice@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Created from a parcel of peated (Ballechin) and unpeated Edradour, distilled in 2005. Both whiskies matured exclusively in 2nd Fill Sherry Hogsheads for 16 years before bottling at 55%. 87.6pts Whiskybase
Producer Note
"Equilibrium is our ongoing attempt to create whiskies that display a balanced sherry and peat flavour profile. Always featuring the two single malts from Edradour distillery. This second release is a mix of a 2005 Edradour and a 2005 Ballechin, both matured full term for 16 years in 2nd fill sherry hogsheads and bottled with slight reduction at 55%. We're very happy with the result. It's a slightly lighter and more subtle expression than Equilibrium One, showing more complex earthy notes, dry wood smoke, herbs, cured meats, dark fruits and tobaccos. Layered, rich and highly sessionable. We think anyone who enjoys peat and sherry together will find plenty to enjoy here."
700ml mlAndrew's Tasting Note
Nose: big, sherried, and spicy, with a savoury, meaty backbone; hickory smoked BBQ brisket, charcoal briquette ash, and burnt BBQ sauce; leather, tobacco, chocolate, and Montreal steak spices.
Palate: savoury, meaty, sherried, and subtly peated; baby back ribs, smothered in BBQ sauce... a touch burnt on the under side; more hickory smoke, charcoal briquette ash, and smouldering oak smoke; more dark chocolate, leather, and tobacco, and the Montreal steak spice too.
Finish: gets darker on its way to the finale, with more leather, dark chocolates, tobacco, and in the spice department cloves, and cardamom; espresso bean too.
Comment: this is a fine fusion of ash, BBQ, sherry, and much more besides; bold, rich, and layered, but balanced!
Producer Tasting Note
Nose: scented hardwoods, BBQ smoke, glowing peat embers and game meats cured with herbs and paprika. Shares many similarities with Equilibrium One, but this is overall much more subtle, scented and complex.
Palate: remarkably easy despite the 55% bottling strength. Sweet, peppery peat smoke, gentle cured meat notes, dark chocolate, tobaccos and dark fruits muddled with wood smoke. Silky in texture and really well integrated.
Finish: long, deeply smoky with coal and wood smokes intermingling. Sour cherries, cough medicines, salted liquorice and a dark, almost sticky peatiness.
Originally written by Evan for blog posts related to KWM's 2020 Whisky Calendar.
Edradour distillery is located in Perthshire and is one of the more picturesque distilleries around – not just because of the buildings and their history and the whisky they make, but also due to the landscape it all resides on. The Edradour Burn is a stream/river that flows through the distillery property, which itself resides on a gently sloping hill. This view is especially impressive in the morning, with the fog not yet having dissipated entirely.
When you take in the entire scene, it is incredibly picturesque, on par for me view-wise with visiting Maker’s Mark Distillery in Kentucky. One big difference between the two though, is that Maker’s Mark goes through pains to show you how authentic and quaint and different from the rest it is. This is nice, but it is kind of like a person bragging about how humble they are. It is fun if they get the irony of it all and are intentionally saying it as a joke, but not if they are being earnest to the point of hypocrisy.
The picturesque Edradour Distillery - with another group starting on the tour to eventually become evangelized like the rest.
Edradour doesn’t seem to brag or boast much. It just is what it is: a small distillery (well, technically two distilleries now I suppose..) owned by Signatory, which itself a small(ish) independent bottler. Both are located in the beautiful scenery of Perthshire in the Highlands. That is what makes nearly every visitor become an ambassador for the brand.
Edradour Distillery produces both unpeated and peated malt. Edradour 10 Year Old, which is arguably the flagship bottle for Edradour, is unpeated in style. When the distillery runs a peated batch, they call the resulting spirit Ballechin. It was given this name by Edradour’s owner Andrew Symington chose for its heavily peated runs of spirit. The Ballechin name was previously used for another distillery that used to reside nearby Edradour, though it closed down for the last time in 1927.
For Ballechin, Edradour Distillery uses malted barley peated to about 50PPM. The first runs of this heavily peated style happened back in 2003, and after a series of limited runs with the Ballechin name attached, the Ballechin 10 Year Old was officially introduced as a regular bottling in 2014.
Another interesting tidbit that I just hinted at in my post for the Edradour 10: The Edradour distillery currently has TWO stillhouses on site. Both are operational as well. The new stillhouse, which is classified as Edradour no2 when the spirit is put into cask, is in a building that also doubles as a warehouse.