Bunnahabhain

Region: Islay

Owner: Burns Stewart (Distell Group Ltd)

Founded: 1881

Bunnahabhain is a perplexing distillery, in the same manner as Auchtentoshan. When they age their spirit in American oak it ranks as one of my favourite whiskies. Young it can be extremely barley’d and displays a lovely depth of summery fruit and with age it develops those classic tropical fruit notes. So why does the distillery insist on blanketing this beautiful malt with sherry?

Their reliance on sherry butts has seen the distillery dance with the sulphur devil on far too many occasions, thus I can only award it a C grade. Far too often, when money is tight, the first thing to be sacrificed is the quality of the casks, and the distillery faced this during the late 1980’s and as a consequence a number of bottlings during the Highland Distilleries Company regime, using sherry casks filled with spirit distilled in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s are amongst some of the most heavily sulphured I have ever come across.

In fairness, after the takeover by Edrington in 1999, their wood policy appears to have been considerably overhauled, but both they and subsequently Burn Stewart, who purchased the distillery in 2003 had the legacy of that era to contend with, which is why, even now I still find the occasional bottling to be tainted in this manner. I will say that the 12 year does now appear to be free of that blemish, but we are only now approaching the post Highland Distilleries spirit with the 18 year old and it’ll be a few more years until the 25 year is drawn from stocks distilled after 1999. Although in fairness the 25 year old is a very impressive, mature sherry monster and is largely free of blemishes, and so it should be considering its price tag these days.

So, my advice is to track down independently bottled Bunnahabhain that has been matured in American oak. It’s not difficult to find as the distillery appears to be quite happy to sell off these casks to the independent bottling companies, and some lovely bottling’s have emerged over the years and continue to emerge.

(Image Copyright James Mortimer Photography)