Recommendations for a 14yo whisk(e)y

The Arran, Balvenie, and Clynelish you found are all solid options!

@mrfat I found the Balvenie Caribbean Cask cloyingly sweet, just as you would expect from the rum influence. I would go with the Clynelish as a pretty safe bet. Although it is a little bit of an acquired taste, the taste is very easily acquired.

Cheers.

@BlueNote, I think that you got an outlier batch or bottle with your cloyingly sweet Balvenie Caribbean Cask. I am extremely sensitive to 'cloyingly sweet' in a whisky and detest it with a vengeance. I have had Balvenie Caribbean Cask from at least 4 or 5 different bottles, and I have never seen cloyingly sweet there.

FWIW, I will be the first to testify to inconsistency in batches from The Balvenie. I wish it were not so, but that has certainly been my experience. So I don't doubt that you could have acquired or tasted such a bottle.

@Victor I'm tempted to try it again. I took the one I had to a tasting session with some of my regular malt mates and nobody liked it, not even after dinner as a dessert dram. I bought it in Britain on sale in a large supermarket and carted it back home in my suitcase along with a couple of really good IBs from the Whisky Castle. Maybe it didn't like the trip.

@BlueNote, yes, so many different things can go wrong with a whisky, that it is often difficult to know exactly what is going on in any given case. By contrast to your experience, the only bottle of Balvenie 14 yo Caribbean Cask which I have owned was unacceptably dry at first. I almost gave up on it. It took two months of air time for it to acquire any sweetness at all. I've had a bunch of samples from other bottles of 14 CC over the years, usually at commercial tastings, all of which tasted quite a bit different, and better, than had been my own bottle. None were excessively sweet, and none of them received negative reactions from the various other people drinking them with me. One never knows for sure what one will get until one tastes it for oneself.

I really like the Glenfiddich 14 Yr Bourbon Barrel Reserve, 43% ABV, available for around $50 or so where I am (SE Florida). Obvious bourbon note as well as nuts and fruitiness on the finish.

Glengoyne do a 14 year old - I think it may be exclusive to M&S in the UK. It's relatively cheap and sadly only 40% ABV so may not befitting of an anniversary, but it's probably a nicely made, well-balanced drop.

Clynelish or Arran would be my picks also.