Whisky : Balmenach 8 Year; The Exclusive Malts

Country/Region : Scotland/Speyside

ABV : 57.6%

Cask : Ex-Port Wine Cask

Age : 8 Years (Distilled March 7, 2007, Bottled March 2015)

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ Home

Nose : Raisin Bran: malty cereal sweetness with dried berries.  The dominant breakfast notes are joined with a creaminess and a toffee sweetness.  Juicy slightly tart fruits lurk behind the malty cereal; fresh picked blackberries, lilikoi (passionfruit), and rich fig.  

Palate : Sweet malty vanilla is accompanied by a spectrum of juicy berries and just a bit of sea salt.  Blackberries, marionberries, black raspberries, cassis, and ‘ohelo berries all vie for dominance.  The faint vegetable sweetness of stewed carrots and parsnips lurks in the background giving depth.  My wife found the palate to have far more of a salty, sweet, and faintly sour profile like umeshu or a seaweed soup.

Finish : Long and lingering sweet summer berries, honey, and subtle spices.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Bowl of Raisin Bran cereal.

Something Better : Arran 9 Year Sherry Cask Strength (similar intense berries, more spice, less sweet)

Something Similar : Westland American Single Malt (similar berry notes, more wood spice, thicker mouthfeel)

Something Worse : Kirkland Signature Speyside 18/20 (more wood spice & cherry, less body, vibrancy, berry)

Notes :  No one could blame you if you took a dram of this for breakfast.  It has cereals, fruits, and milk— everything you need to get your day started.

The dark berry sweetness combines wonderfully with the malty cereal and cream notes to give perhaps the clearest impression of a bowl of cereal I’ve ever had in a scotch.  The faint sweet vegetable notes give enough complexity to keep the dram from being completely one note.  It is a bit on the sweet side for my taste, though I definitely prefer the sweetness of blackberry to that of apple or honey.

I had never come across a Balmenach before this bottle.  Despite some intriguing characteristics; cask strength, port cask matured, non chill-filtered, natural color— I hesitated to pull the trigger on an unknown distillery’s single cask, especially at only 8 years old.  Don’t I have enough whisky in my cabinet already?

Well the poor thing languished on the shelves with its companions for years, occasionally moving locations to make room for new bottles, mostly stuck on the bottom shelf with other rarely touched independent bottler expressions.  Then, suddenly, it’s pricing sticker changed from blue to green.  The Balmenach along with its Exclusive Malts brethren were going on clearance.

It still sat on the shelves for a few months, but eventually my curiosity got the better of me.  If I had known how good this bottle was, I probably would have bought it sooner.