Another undisclosed Balvenie that is tea-spooned. A few years ago there were a lot of them, but this specific one was bottled for the Taiwanese market. By Archives / Whiskybase, with a bird from the orient on the label.
Genereally, I tend to like these Burnsides and (a few years ago at least) they were far more affordable than the Balvenies without a drop of Glenfiddich or Kininvie in there. This one used to go for € 175, but I expect it to do more in recent times.
I got a sample from Tom ‘MadMaster’ who came by to pick up a boatload of samples last week. The plan was to have this together, but my wife’s migraine ended that plan, unfortunately. At least I got to try it! Blind, I might add. The wee sample bottle only had the Whiskybase number on it, and I decided to try it before I looked at it.
Sniff:
The nose starts with liquid apple pie. There’s baked apples, some cinnamon, and quite a bit of vanilla. It starts rather gently, and after a minute or so it loses a bit of its fruitiness and turns more towards hessian and hay, and steeped barley.
Sip:
The palate arrives gently, but does build up to some peppery heat after a few seconds. The vanilla sweetness and dry notes battle for attention. They seem to end up in a draw. There’s that note of pie crust again, with some sweet baked apple. A dry note of apple seeds, sawdust, and straw.
Swallow:
The finish seems to give preference to the dryness with the vanilla, pastry sweetness taking a back seat. Sawdust, a bit of a rubbery or whale skin texture. Quite long.
Throughout it all there’s a little bit of honey sweetness, but not so much that it becomes a ‘too sweet’ dram. I should have been able to guess it was a Balvenie, but I didn’t really guess at all, or send my mind in that direction. It’s a bit middle-of-the-road Speyside and bourbon cask. So a lot of apple pie and vanilla. If we have to say something less positive (a big if in this case) it’s that it doesn’t really stand out from similar casks. Then again, if something works, why change the approach?
89/100