Bunnahabhain SMWS 10.106 “Salted lemon sherbet”

Thanks to Tim W. for the sample.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been intermittently posting my results of an Advent Calendar that my wife put together from my samples. It’s Day #21. All of the whiskies were done blind. All of them I should have known. The only hint I was given, eventually, is they were in the order of lower abv. to higher.

And she may have had trouble with some of the handwriting on them, so that wasn’t really happening.

So let’s see how I did this time, shall we?

Price: Sold out

Region: Islay

Date Distilled: 6th October 2006

Age: 10-years-old

Cask Type: Refill Ex-Bourbon Barrel

Outturn: 198 bottles

Abv: 60.1%

Colour: 2.5Y 8/6

Nose: Peach cobbler, clotted cream, strawberry, lemon

Has that stronger, cakey-peach flavour of a cask strength dram. Young. Has some nice creaminess.

Water brings out a lot more acidity. Hard to tell if it’s ex-bourbon and has more fruitiness than normal or a lighter sherry cask.

Taste: Cinnamon, hot, anise, lime, grassy, bread

Well, that’s quite spicy. And rough. Very hot. This is really young. It’s hard to get past any spice blasts or lime/grassiness.

Water brings out bread. So there’s that. I guess.

Finish: Butter, cinnamon, bread, salt

The finish is simpler. Still hot, but at least I get some of a cinnamon bun vibe going. This doesn’t really have the years to really do it well, but it comes close.

That said it’s still pretty rough.

Conclusion: Really hot and spicy, the nose is nice, rest is really rough. Frankly, in trying this blind, there was only a slight hint at the distillery (the salt at the end). I think this is some of their peated malts and it’s young and brash. The initial nose may have been why they named it what it was, and I’ll give them that, it certainly has that “interesting fruit and acid and spice” thing going on.

Otherwise, there’s been better Bunnahabhain, better SMWS Bunnahabhain, better peated Bunnahabhain… you get the idea. I guess it was a Speyside at cask strength, so take that as you will.

73/100

Guess: 61% Tamdhu?

Actually: Bunnahabhain SMWS 10.106 “Salted lemon sherbet”

Scotch review #1078, Islay review #292, Whisky review #1679