Whisky Connosr
Menu
Buy Whisky Online

Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old

Chocolate matchsticks and dried fruit /SMALL BATCH

4 985

@GeorgyReview by @Georgy

29th Dec 2017

0

Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old
  • Nose
    ~
  • Taste
    ~
  • Finish
    ~
  • Balance
    ~
  • Overall
    85

Show rating data charts

Distribution of ratings for this: brand user

So this is a bottle of Bunnahabhain 12 (small batch distilled). I don't know much about this new release /packaging. Perhaps, it's just a marketing gimmick. Let's get right down to business.

NOSE: smoke, BBQ, seaweed, caramel. Sea salt minerality, toffee, dried cherries, raisins, cola, used up matchsticks (probably due to sherry sulfur influence), rich cacao. (21/25)

TASTE: sweet, salty, mineral, dry, spicy. Chocolate, milk chocolate, vanilla, fudge, peat, ginger (a lot of it), BBQ again, cherries, cherry cola, creamy dark hot chocolate, licorice,strawberry jam (20/25) A little harsh.

FINISH: long, mineral, vanilla, milk chocolate again, dried bitter cranberries, some pepper. (21/25)

BALANCE: 23/25 SCORE: 85/100 OVERALL IMPRESSION: very pleasant, but doesn't rock my world by any means.

Related Bunnahabhain reviews

9 comments

@Victor
Victor commented

A little sulphur there? That's too bad.

So far I haven't noticed sulphur in Bunnahabhain 12.

6 years ago 1Who liked this?

@Georgy
Georgy commented

@Victor Lucky you!) Mine does have that matchstick note to it. It's not unpleasant, though

6 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor commented

I can ignore a little sulphur in a whisky and still enjoy it, though noticing it will always lower my score. More than a little sulphur ruins a whisky for me. Burnt matchstick in the nose usually signals much worse sulphur bitterness in the finish. At this point in the evolution of my taste sulphur never tastes good to me. Sulphur can be well-disguised by moderate to heavy peat, though, and peat can reduce sulphur's ability to seize control of the attention.

I sort of miss the days when I didn't sense sulphur so acutely. That ship has sailed, though, and I will never be able to tolerate sulphured whiskies again.

6 years ago 2Who liked this?

@Georgy
Georgy commented

@Victor some modern whisky lovers don't mind it at all. They even see it as a norm in sherried whiskies

6 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor commented

@Georgy, yes, some industry hacks would rationalize the current low standards for Scottish wine-cask matured whiskies in this way. I would call that whisky industry apologism. A combination of pretending that everything is fine and up to top standards and rationalization about the part that isn't. When sulphur is the norm in Scottish sherried whiskies then sherried whiskies as a category have been flushed down the toilet. These wine cask Scottish malts do not taste like they did 60 years ago. To tell the difference drink some Macallan bottled 50 years ago, or some Amrut Intermediate Sherry. It is unfortunate that it takes a whisky which is not Scotch to exemplify perfectly clean sherry.

Many do not smell or taste the sulphur. They are somewhat lucky. It doesn't ruin 80% of the Scottish wine cask malts for them the way it does for someone like me.

6 years ago 2Who liked this?

@Georgy
Georgy commented

@Victor It's just something that is inevitable. This era is not really about quality. And this can be said about almost everything today) So...it is what it is.

6 years ago 0

@paddockjudge
paddockjudge commented

@Georgy, @Victor, Sulfur tainted whisky is inexcusable. Sulfur, in any amount, should not be detectable in the finished product. Complacency by consumers leads to a sense of entitlement by producers. I can tolerate NAS whisky because I can choose to avoid it, but sulfur tainted whisky is detectable only after the bottle has been opened; a slap in the face that can't be avoided.

6 years ago 2Who liked this?

@RianC
RianC commented

@Georgy - My bottle drank earlier this year had a bit of a nip when first opened. After a month or two it became much milder and softened down considerably. I reckon I'd have scored it 83 ish at first but would have been up towards 87-88 by the end.

The dried fruit notes really came out and I'd often take the cork out just to have a whiff! I loved the saltyness on this one as well.

6 years ago 2Who liked this?

@Hewie
Hewie commented

@RianC totally agree.

6 years ago 0