Bruichladdich 18 1989 Kosher Wine Finish [MYSTERY]

Thanks to /u/throwboats for the mystery sample!

Your friends teach you good habits, and bad. I’ve had friends who’ve taught me to clean up, to fold my clothing, and to respect myself. I’ve had friends who’ve taught me to talk behind others backs and generally be a bad person. It’s give and take.

Recently one of the “bad” habits I’ve picked up is seeing who, in the Reddit Whisky Archive, is “leading” on the number of reviews from any one distillery. It helps no one. It determined nothing. It proves nothing. It’s stupid.

And frankly, I hate myself for peaking every so often. One of the leading groups is the amount of Bruichladdich reviews. I find myself perpetually in second when this comes up. Which is fine. It helps me move forward and order my samples in such a way that gets me to finally drink them.

While discussing this moronic non-competition with throwboats, he said he’d help me out by sending a mystery Bruichladdich. Which I appreciate very much. I still can’t catch up, but I appreciate it.

So let’s see how this tastes, shall we?

Price: N/A in the LCBO

Region: Islay

Vintage: 1989

Bottled: 2008

Cask Types: Ex-Bourbon for 18 years, then finished in casks from the Carmel winery in Israel

Number of Bottles: 6,000

Abv: 46%

Colour: 7.5YR 4/8

Nose: Red liquorice, bananas, cloves, anise, grass

Interesting nose. It has aspects of a light finish of a sherry cask, which goes well alongside the fruit aspects of banana and spice.

It’s certainly gotten some age on it. Granted the background of Bruichladdich means that poor cask management could mean this is new and has better casks, or old and used bad casks that didn’t help as much.

Taste: Anise, cinnamon, raspberry, brown sugar, brine

Spice continues on. Nice brown sugar and raspberry. Still light on the sherry side, as I’ve decided (incorrectly) that there’s sherry involved.

The brine and spice from the malt shine well here.

Finish: Molasses, cinnamon, kiwi, grass, manure, orange souffle

The finish is where this starts to really show it’s age. More flavour, more added to it, and more to grasp onto, like having sex in your 30s.

Nice farmyard, good molasses, and even some tropical notes.

So I’m pretty sure it’s Bruichladdich, what with the label.

Conclusion: I have never had a kosher wine finish. And I can’t really say if it’s much different than a white or red wine finish, or what would make it. I’m not a Kosher wine drinker, sadly. Or not. I don’t really know.

So what can I say about this dram? The finish did the trick. We know that the Bruichladdich barrels were in rough places during the late 80s, so finishing it up has revived it nicely. The odd notes blast out in the finish, and the whole thing is nice to sip on.

So basically drink this for a spice bomb, a great finish, and an overall nice dram. And then get more people looking into these wine casks, they could help the whole sherry cask shortage thing.

83/100

Guess: Bruichladdich 20 Second Edition

Actually: Bruichladdich 1989 18 Year Old Kosher Wine Finish

Scotch review #911, Islay review #240, Whisky Network review #1460