Infrequent Flyers Balmenach 8yo
Batch 9 2022 | 58.4% ABV
A festival newbie
Many of the hobbies and interests we enjoy have their own communities - a group of like-minded people who get together to share their passion with each other.
It could be football supporters, comic book collectors, trainspotters, or pretty much anything else. However, I can’t think of another community with the same generosity, friendliness and inclusivity as whisky. There is maybe a little bit of grandstanding with that statement, as there are many hobbies I know nothing about, and I’m sure there are other great communities out there, but at the very least, whisky has to be right up there with the best of them.
Social media rightly gets a fair amount of criticism for the damage it can do to a person’s mental health. The constant barrage of negativity that can grind down even the most upbeat people. It reminds me of the scene in Father Ted, where Father Kevin is on top of the world after hearing Shaft on Ted’s record player, and then gets on the bus and hears Radiohead and the darkness descends once more. Social media can have that effect at times, but for all it can take away, it does have that brilliant ability to bring people from all walks of life, and from all part of the globe, closer together. It’s a virtual double-edged sword, but one I still think is balanced towards the positive if you can block out the rest of the noise.
Despite being a whisky drinker for more than a decade and moving into what I would call whisky geek territory a few years ago, I only recently shared whisky with other enthusiasts for the first time. It was long overdue, with the pandemic delaying an experience I surely would have had a couple of years ago. There are no whisky clubs close to where I live, no events that wouldn’t require an overnight stay, and I have a young family which means attending said events requires a little more planning and just a touch of buttering up my wife. To my wife’s credit she is a bit of a whisky enabler, and when I am contemplating whether or not to buy a bottle, rather than ask “Don’t you have enough whisky already?” she’s more likely to say “Just buy it!”
I think it’s fair to say I jumped in at the deep end by making Glasgow the first whisky festival to attend. I travelled up solo, and I don’t mind admitting I was a little bit nervous about meeting people I had only ever interacted with from behind the protective glow of a computer screen. Those worries were soon allayed by the warm welcome I received from the first few people I introduced myself to; faces I recognised from their profile pictures. After three or four pours I was even less worried about diving in and saying hello to people who had absolutely no idea who I was pre-introduction. Every single person I met was great.
The sheer amount of whisky available to be sampled at the various stands was no real surprise, I’d already said to myself that I can’t possibly try them all and I knew I needed to be very selective. Having said that, I found myself at the very first stand I saw asking for a pour. It was something I wanted to try, the first release from Glen Wyvis that I had heard good things about. Perhaps it was because it was the first dram of the day and my palate wasn’t set, it was a packed and noisy environment, and the whisky had no time resting in the glass, but it didn’t grab me in any way. I moved on. There were a couple of extra special drams including a 32 year old Balmenach from Hunter Laing and a 25 year old Caperdonich from SMWS, but back in the world of the affordable and available, other highlights included an ex-bourbon and madeira cask matured 11 year old Knockdhu from Cadenhead’s, and the 15 year old GlenAllachie selected and poured by none other than Billy Walker himself on his recommendation.
I must admit that interaction with Mr Walker, who was happy to chat to people and pose for a selfie, may have elevated the experience somewhat. Talking of 15 year old core range whiskies, the newly re-released Glengoyne is rather good too, albeit expensive at £90 and at only 43% abv. We will continue to be baffled by Glengoyne’s presentation and pricing, but you can’t say they don’t make good whisky. They’re so close. Drop the price a little and give us 46% non-chill filtered and we’ll evangelise and buy bottles and bottles of the stuff. It won’t happen and, as long as they are selling plenty of whisky, nor will they want it to.
As it turned out, the festival itself was merely an amuse-bouche to the entire weekend as a whole, with an excellent curry followed by an evening in the Bon Accord pub, a distillery tour the next morning with a few other weary festival folk, and Aqvavitae’s fabulous Blind Challenge Live, after which there was even more superb and generously shared whisky and chat before the weekend drew to a close. I was still on a high days later.
The warmth of the people and the mutual love of whisky was a continued theme throughout the weekend and made it what is was. It really is as much about the people as it is the whisky, if not more so, something I finally understood after that weekend. I will be back, and it can’t come soon enough.
I mentioned tasting a special 32 year old Balmenach at the festival, and I just happened to take along a younger bottle from the same distillery with me to share with fellow attendees after the blind challenge event. Before I bought a bottle of this I had first tried it blind, and once it was revealed at the end of the tasting, I decided I had to buy one. Well I say one, I actually ended up getting another after a couple of pours from the first bottle. It got a little lost amongst a field of unicorns that were brought by other people at the Glasgow event. Let’s face it, if you have 25 year old Arran and 21 year old Old Pulteney on the table it would be hard not to go for those, but hopefully a few people tried and enjoyed it. I wasn’t too disappointed to be taking most of the bottle home.
You could easily be forgiven for thinking Balmenach is one of the Diageo’s blend supplying Speyside distilleries, with no official bottlings coming from the distillery for two decades. It is in fact owned by Inver House, who have plenty of releases from their other four distilleries, Balblair, Knockdhu (AnCnoc), Pulteney and Speyburn. Balmenach is clearly too valued by the blenders for them to feel it worthwhile releasing any of their stocks as an official single malt, which is a shame. Thanks to the independents you do see a little bit of it out there, with the Deerstalker branded 12 year old being the most ubiquitous bottling.
Review
Infrequent Flyers, Balmenach 2013 8yo, Batch 9 Spring 2022 Release, 58.4% ABV
£55 sold out but occasionally available
Alistair Walker has been bottling whisky under the Infrequent Flyers brand since 2018, and so far we have seen two previous reviews on Dramface. Earie reviewed a bottle from Knockdhu, which just like this Balmenach was matured for 8 years in a single first-fill ex-bourbon cask, while Dougie reviewed a 13 year old Dailuaine from a refill hogshead. Both scored a very good 7/10.
This bottle was part of Infrequent Flyers batch 9 releases, which went on sale in the spring of 2022. As mentioned previously, it is an 8 year old distilled in 2013, and matured entirely in a first-fill ex-bourbon cask numbered 131. It was bottled at a natural strength of 58.4%, with no chill filtration or colour added. I paid just under £55.
Nose
Strawberries and cream campino sweets, which I haven’t had for decades but are still so familiar. There’s estery orchard fruits and banana too. It’s quite an unusual, but nonetheless lovely fruit combination. I also get coconut, honey and vanilla pods, with freshly baked almond croissant and a hint of damp, earthy cellar.
Palate
It has a nice syrupy texture, with a lovely effervescent fizz right off the bat. If sherbet pineapples were a thing this would be it. There’s a root ginger heat, which is followed by black pepper, anise and oak spice. We then start to get vanilla in abundance, with hazelnut, caramel and bitter lemon. The finish is slightly drying, but it is balanced by the continuing and increasingly creamy vanilla and hazelnut, with a touch of green apple peel at the end.
The Dregs
For a fairly young whisky at cask strength, it drinks surprisingly well without the addition of water, although a drop does help amplify the flavours on both the nose and palate, as is often the case. Fruity ex-bourbon is my whisky happy place and this ticks all the right boxes. The main problem with these single cask releases is unfortunately their availability. There are only 252 bottles of this, and most appear to have been snapped up already. Hopefully there are one or two still out there to be found.
I can’t think of too many whiskies I have bought following a blind tasting, but I have pulled the trigger on two from Alistair Walker. Before this Balmenach I had enjoyed a wonderful Marsala finished Ruadh Maor, which is the name given to independently bottled peated whiskies from Glenturret. It was wonderfully rich, with red fruits and smoked meats galore. If I was reviewing that it would be an 8/10.
All these very good scores indicate to me that this is an independent bottler worth looking out for.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. RT
This is a Friday First debut piece by Ramsay - give him a nice Dramface welcome in the comments!