Bunnahabhain Cask Strength 2023
Official 2023 edition | 60.1% ABV
From the source
As we turned off the main road down the single-track road heading north, passing the sign for Bunnahabhain and Ardnahoe, my excitement kicked into high gear. My partner and I were into our last full day of our trip to Islay.
Her second trip, my first. My pilgrimage, you might say. Long a devout follower of Bunnahabhain, I was finally making my way to the holy of holies to pay homage. And to partake in the imbibing of some divine nectar.
We were extremely lucky to have unbelievable weather during our trip. Mixed sunshine and clouds on the day of our Bunnahabhain visit, and a few sprinkles but also mostly sunshine during the previous days’ leisurely stroll along the Three Distilleries Walk at the opposite end of the island, popping into Ardbeg and Lagavulin (cards on the table: not a huge Laphroaig fan). Sample drams, café stops, and side visits to the remains of Dunyvaig Castle on a coastal rocky outcrop overlooking Lagavulin, and a nearby neolithic standing stone in a field near Port Ellen, made for some fun exploration of the south Islay coast. While I don’t judge anyone else’s travel itineraries, some other folks we bumped into appeared to be on the island mostly for some distillery box-ticking. I felt they were really missing out on what else the place has to offer.
Driving around to different parts of the island also revealed its very different landscapes. The relatively flat (for Scotland) moorland between Bowmore and Port Ellen felt calm to the more blustery Bruichladdich on the far side of Loch Indaal. The slightly more wooded south coast had a more bucolic sense than the remote feel of the ancient historical seat of the Lords of the Isles at Finlaggan.
Wandering around Finlaggan’s historical ruins of a meeting house, chapel, and various other structures long since demolished prompted us to stop and consider the kinds of things that these sorts of places are very good at prompting. As the ruins sit symbolically on a tiny island within a loch on Islay, and as we touched the stone walls as they started to cast shadows across the water at sunset, with orange skies drifting into pink clouds as the sun slowly descended, we each reflected how short a time we’re all here for.
Where we were standing was once the seat of power for this entire region of Scotland, and now it’s a quiet site for visitors to peruse. It’s quite something to think about how the power of lords and kings now only remain as piles of cold stones, and what you and I non-kingly folks will leave behind will be even less. But, rather than a catalyst for melancholy, it instead sparks a desire to savour and be thankful and fully present; thankful for the visit to this place, thankful for the love of partners, friends, and family, and thankful for the wonderful liquid that this island is known for. Thankful to simply be alive on this day, and feel the crisp and cool autumn air gently brush our cheeks as the sun goes down over the ruins and across the water, holding the warm hand of a partner. I smile to myself as I look at her gazing out across the loch. We look up to see a small group of geese flying across the quiet loch towards the orange horizon.
We were also thankful for the sheer kindness and good humour of the local folks who live there. Each of our days was marked by a series of chats, encounters, and characters that we’re still talking about now several weeks out from our trip. The initially taciturn man who quickly became chattier when describing his wariness about news of yet another distillery approved for the island, the woman who offered us some cucumbers from her garden because she had too many because “they just won’t stop”, the couple on the beach at Machir Bay at sunset sitting silent and cross-legged, with their backs to each other, eyes closed, engaging in some meditation with their pebble-ringed fire crackling and with waves hitting the beach as their evening background music.
There was whisky, too, of course. But, I remain wonderfully and pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed just being on Islay for a few days, soaking it in, and enjoying the slower pace of life that the Scottish islands usually and wonderfully offer.
It was in this mindset that we turned down that single-track road for Bunnahabhain. We stopped twice to take photos of the stunning setting as the road twisted and turned up, down, up, and then finally down again to the natural harbour where the distillery rests. We browsed the well-stocked (but pricey) shop before being gently corralled with some other folks and taken to Warehouse 9 for a tasting of a variety of drams straight from some casks sitting in front of us. All were wonderful. After the tasting, we chatted with our fellow group members outside on the pier about our shared love of the water of life. The summits of Jura towered in the distance across the blue water, turning a thousand shades of browns, oranges, and yellows with the arrival of autumn.
Sitting in the warehouse I thought about my journey with Bunnahabhain. I like many distilleries, but there’s only a handful with which I feel like I’m on more of a journey. Springbank is one, (when I can find it, which is never) ever since having visited in 2019. Glen Scotia is another, as is Benromach. By “journey” I suppose I mean that my exploration of what these distilleries offer is more purposeful, rather than a casual survey. As The Stranger in the Big Lebowski would say, I like their style, dude.
I make a point to spend more time with these distilleries than others. They all offer lots of opportunities to follow common threads and signatures and their myriad transformations across variable casks, ages, ABVs, OBs, and IBs. I had purchased the 2023 12 year old cask strength just before our trip to Islay and had begun to explore it. I could smell and taste the Bunna signature in this bottle and as a common sensory thread running through the casks in Warehouse 9 from which we were given drams. We sat on repurposed church pews during our tasting, which I felt was pretty on the nose, but nevertheless perfect.
Review
Bunnahabhain 12yo Cask Strength, 2023 Edition, 60.1% ABV
£85 and widely available
There’s little information on the bottle to indicate cask make-up, but we do get the basic boxes for integrity ticked off here; no added colour, non-chill filtered, and a high ABV. The label tells us that it’s “sherried, nutty, unpeated.” The Bunnahabhain website makes a point to say that since “not everyone can make the trip to our remote distillery” to experience the Warehouse 9 tasting, this bottling “gives people from around the world the chance to experience it for themselves.”
Nose
Some sherry qualities such as cinnamon and sweet fruits, but right off the bat you can tell that this isn’t a repeat of last year’s 2022 release. The sherried qualities are balanced by some wood and malty notes. The high ABV clearly comes through on the nose but not quite as much as the hefty 60.1% would lead you to believe. Booze-soaked hazelnuts stored in an oak box. A distant coastal salty quality. There’s a notable earthy quality to this as well that also sets it apart from the 2022. Sitting in the glass a while, and a few drops of water, brings out some light floral notes.
Palate
Malty, buttery, sweet, and salty. Wonderfully oily and thick mouth-coating texture. Dark cherries and raisins alongside salted caramel. Boozy hazelnuts again, wrapped in toffee coating dusted with some dark coffee and vanilla. The weighty character of the Bunnahabhain spirit is delightfully on display here. A few drops of water tames the ABV and highlights the coastal edge a bit more without muting the sherry influence. Long finish, with toffee again, lightly salty, oaky, and muted spices.
In discussions of Islay drams Bunnahabhain is sometimes categorized as a lighter spirit compared to the island’s other distillates since it is usually unpeated (but does of course make some peated malt). This dram clearly shows why that’s largely mistaken; this distillate is substantial, oily, and heavy. There’s a reason why it stands up so well to heavy sherry maturation: the spirit can handle it. My Scottish friends might call this a “muckle” spirit; mighty and hefty.
The Dregs
I’m a big Bunnahabhain fan, if it wasn’t already painfully obvious (but not an uncritical one), so take my perspective here with that in mind. This is a damn good dram. It’s heavy, it’s sherried but by no means a sherry bomb, it’s complex, and its different dimensions are nicely balanced against each other to create a sensory equilibrium that allows accessible exploration of different facets of the house spirit. There’s plenty for me to explore here all evening in this one dram. For me, that’s pretty close to the definition of a satisfying dram, and it’s one of the better Bunnahabhains I’ve tried.
But there’s batch variation for sure, and that’s what, many of you dear Dramface readers, may be more interested in. How does this compare to last year’s 2022 sherry belter, or 2021’s first release?
I find myself enjoying this 2023 release just as much as last year’s more sherried release, but – importantly – for different reasons. This is not a repeat of the 2022. I repeat: this is not the 2022, so if you are expecting that with this, you may be either surprised or disappointed, or both. That the distillery has decided to make the 12 year old cask strength release explicitly batch variable means that we now have three very distinct drams across three years that showcase different aspects of the spirit.
For me, this is to be welcomed. Life is short, I get bored easily, and I don’t want to drink the same thing all the time. I want to see what my favourite distilleries can do with their spirit. Chop, change, twist, turn – I want to explore all the permutations and variations I can in the spirits I love. With this series, some folks were initially and understandably a bit disappointed with the 2021 (despite that being a good dram), feeling it wasn’t quite the punchier big brother of the standard 12 year old that was expected in a first release of the cask strength version. The 2022 met that expectation and both the 2022 and 2023 are fabulous drams - in their own ways - showcasing different sides of the spirit, and this should be celebrated, discussed, explored, and discovered for ourselves.
Precisely because it’s a different beast from the 2022, I would recommend trying before you buy, if you can. £85 is a lot of money (an extra £5 over last year’s, I might add), and while I was willing to pony-up for this (indeed, I limited my whisky purchasing recently with a view towards saving for this), if you’re not sure if it’s for you, try it in a pub or trade a sample with a friend who has it.
Profile-wise, this sits somewhere between the 2021 and the 2022. Quality-wise, though, this is on-par with the 2022. For me. Again, it’s certainly not last year’s sherry bomb, but rather gives us some of those sherry qualities we often look for with Bunna but this year packages them with some of the heavier sides of the distillate. The 2023 feels like perhaps more second-fill sherry and a bit more ex-bourbon casks than the 2022, which felt like a significant proportion of first-fill sherry. I could be wrong, but the differing flavour profiles would seem to suggest it. Whatever the cask make-up, this is a great dram: one to be explored, savoured, slowly enjoyed, and one that will take me back to that sunny day on the remote north edge of Islay.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DD
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