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.

Bunnahabhain is a robust and complex spirit, unpeated and oily but with sweet notes of dried fruits and cereal, and it means that the spirit can really take on the big flavour profiles that come from the full maturation in the sherry casks.” Our Service is an online platform which provides Members with information (e.g. bottle facts, market-indices, market values and prices) on (mostly) whisky and allows Members to add information to the platform. We do not sell, nor does the Service provide any option to buy, any alcoholic products. Unless mandatory applicable law provides otherwise, your use of and membership to the Service are exclusively governed by Dutch law. We shall first try to settle any dispute over a dram of whisky. Disputes that cannot be settled over multiple drams of whisky shall be solely submitted to the court of Amsterdam, The Netherlands unless mandatory applicable law provides otherwise. The trouble is that the expectations we have in whisky are often more about us than about others. As Ogilvie discussed recently, each of our whisky journeys are woven through with expectations. We build up bottles in our eagerly anticipating brains to levels that defy anything approaching common sense. FOMO is one manifestation in whisky of failed expectation management. I see that the Next Best Bottle has just been released, and my mind, nose, and taste buds form a boisterous conga line coaxing me to join, merrily and unthinkingly guiding me to shell out some hard-earned money for it. This sometimes happens with a distillery I’ve yet to try, but more often it’s from a distillery I know and have enjoyed bottles from before. It’s the worst with distilleries that are in the handful of what I’d call my favourites.

Bunnahabhain 12 yo – Cask Strength (55,1%, OB 2021)

Pro Tip: We highly recommend you don’t copy us and do the morning session as cask strength whisky at 10:30am is a fairly big challenge even for practiced drinkers. Whenever you go we suggest you ask for drivers drams as you will receive your drams to take away, but will also receive a far too generous snifter of the drams to try as you’re being taken through the tasting. Although, if you are actually driving please skip the snifters as they’re a sure fire way to end up in a ditch, or off the side of the cliff leading to the distillery.

Bunnahabhain has since been described as a lightly peated malt, with enthusiasts occasionally leaning towards the opinion that there’s no peat whatsoever. However, the distillery buys a proportion of peated malt from Port Ellen as well as unpeated from other maltsters. It’s currently around 3-4 phenols ppm, with annual heavily peated campaigns also running. Nothing in the Terms shall exclude or limit our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or for death or personal injury resulting from gross negligence or willful misconduct by us.Whiskybase B.V. is the Dutch private limited liability company, having its statutory seat in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and its office at Zwaanshals 530, 3035 KS Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Whiskybase B.V. is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce under no. 52072819. If we decide not to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms, such decision shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid, the remainder of the Terms shall continue in full force and effect. Whiskybase B.V. (“Whiskybase”, “we” or “us”, company details below) offers a whisky enthusiasts online platform that provides its members access to the most comprehensive, transparent and trusted resource of whisky bottles and allows and stimulates its members to contribute information about whisky bottles to the platform (“Service”).

In time, the owners invested in a substantial pier which stands to this day, but I discovered that my intuition that building on Islay would’ve been difficult was proven for Bunnahabhain during its construction. Deep into the first building period in an Islay winter, two large boilers were blown off the beach while they were waiting to be fitted. Why build on such a remote part of a small island you ask? Well it seems the decision to build here was not least on account of Robertson & Baxter's close relationship with Bulloch Lade & Company, who were rebuilding Caol Ila at the time, and also because of the plentiful water from Loch Staoisha ( which could also be used to cool the condensers) and the previously mentioned access by sea.

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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. Without prejudice to the section Liability below, the Service may be temporarily unavailable during maintenance, updates, etc. We shall make reasonable efforts to inform you of any unavailability due to maintenance or updates. The Service has been prepared by us solely for information purposes to Members and the Service is based on information we consider reliable and we obtain the contents of the Service from a number of different third party sources (including Contributions), but we do not endorse, support, represent, warrant or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of the Services and any information therein. Another single review today, but it’s another biggie as we look at a huge release from Bunnahabhain. The 2022 12 Years Old Cask Strength release has been matured in first- and second-fill oloroso sherry casks – as was the first 12 Years Old Cask Strength release in 2021 – which the distillery says impart notes of "intense dried fruits and warm cinnamon spice". The new expression is bottled at 56.6% ABV.

In modern times, changes to the norms of whisky production in a particular Scotch whisky region are welcomed. Along with Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain was one of the first to deviate from the typical Islay profile when alternative fuels were made available and the demand for lighter spirit, without the heavy smoke, increased. At one time, there were 23 active distilleries in operation on the island, so competition to sell liquid was rife.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.