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1257 Kensington Road NW
1 (403) 283-8000 / atyourservice@kensingtonwinemarket.com
$389.99
Selected by and bottled exclusively for Rare Drams, this 2004 vintage Bunnahabhain is big, rich and sherried... and has the whisky team all a flutter! Matured 17 years in a Sherry Butt before bottling at 58.3%. 300 total bottles!
700ml mlOUT OF STOCK
If you'd like us to try to order it, add it to your cart. We can't promise, but we'll do our best!
Andrew's Tasting Note
Nose: dark chocolate, polished leather shoes, bacon dipped in maple syrup, and loads of dried fruits; Cuban cigars and old Armagnac; earthy with burnt orange and charred cedar; a whiff of smoke?!
Palate: big, rich and spicy; more dark chocolate, polished leather, Cuban cigar tobacco and Armagnac; the spices build with fennel, clove and hot ginger; drying with more dark fruits and bacon dipped in maple syrup; becomes maritime, salty Dutch licorice and firm tarry smoke that keeps growing; diesel dust and wood ash.
Finish: long, drying and spicy with more sherry and smoke; rich and warming.
Comment: the nose was good, but it is on the palate and finish where this really shines; I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I do; mature, peated and sherried Bunnahabhain such as this is rare; this one is excellent!
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.
