Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old Cask Strength - 2022 Edition

Product Information

Some punchy spice at this strength, the sherry influence is of course prominent, plus toffee and cinnamon. But there’s also a chalkiness punching through the sherry, which might some it might come across as oakiness to someone else. To me, it’s not present in the standard 12 year old. 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? 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. 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. It's easy to drink - you can do it, but you don't have to - you don't miss the big hit, as the great attention around the bottle makes it appear.

From what I can find this cask strength version has a slightly bigger percentage of sherry casks in its recipe, compared to the standard release. The third edition of this annual small-batch release from the Islay distiller is said to pay homage to the roots of the original 12 Years Old. The unpeated spirit has been matured in a combination of first- and second-fill oloroso sherry casks and ex-bourbon casks. There are lots of spheres of life where this approach pays off: sharing the road with lunatic drivers, my mother-in-law’s cooking, or the perpetually scatter-brained friend who can never manage to make a night out even after suggesting it himself. Yet, these are expectations I have of others, not expectations I hold for myself. This distinction is key to how expectations in whisky continue to raise us up, befuddle us, and sometimes come crashing down on our earnestly eager heads.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. Palate: Hazlenuts, drizzled with milk chocolate. A touch of salinity is balanced by crisp green apple, poached pear, and clove. Palate: Still quite chocolate, with raisin, sultana, and ginger in support. Hints of sea air, with toasted walnut too. 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.

Bunnahabhain master blender Julieann Fernandez said: “I’m really proud of this year’s 12 Year Old Cask Strength release. Even bigger and even bolder than its predecessors, with an ABV of 60.1%, it epitomises everything that Bunnahabhain is known for: unpeated, sherried and full of intense flavour, offering big hits of roasted nuts and cinnamon spice in every dram. Another single review today, but it’s another biggie as we look at a huge release from Bunnahabhain. Anyway we digress, at the time of writing all we could determine regarding cask type was that sherry casks featured prominently. Worth noting for those that love sherry that from the taste and colour these were refill sherry casks.But those conga freaks wouldn’t pipe down. The weeks went by and it was still available. The music got louder. I sipped my standard 46% 12 and wondered: “What if this year’s is better?” I then heard a few trusted voices give the 2022 edition some high praise and that coaxed me to join the line. 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. The 2021 is good, but the 2022 is great.If you bought the 2021 edition and were disappointed, the 2022 is what you were hoping for.It’s what I was.It’s very close to the standard 12 dialled up.If you place drams of the 2021 and the 2022 next to the standard 46% 12 year old, right away you’ll group the 2022 and the standard 12 Glencairns together with the 2021 as the outlier. However, if you’ve found a particular article valuable, you also have the option to make a direct donation to the writer, here: buy me a dram - you’d make their day. Thank you.

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. All of this got me thinking, though; with the likes of Ardnahoe recently opening on the island, soon to be joined by Port Ellen, Portintruan and the Islay Boys‘ plans at Glenegedale, you wonder, will there be an appetite for more new distilleries in the not-too-distant future? Islay is quite a remote island, and I dare say sending the appropriate resources to the island for building and production is costly, as well as putting further strains on the island’s already stretched infrastructure. To be different and standout from the norm takes courage and a whole lot of conviction. But sometimes, standing out from the norm is required for survival. And if so, will there be added desire from Islay whisky makers to produce more non-peated Scotch whisky? We know of occasionally unpeated Caol Ila and Ardbeg as well as other small-scale runs here and there, but not a defined profile or brand. Perhaps a new whisky alongside Bunnahabhain and Bruichladdich; a non-peated malt with less difficult pronunciation, perhaps?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”). 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. 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. 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. 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.

No partnership, joint venture, agency, or employment relationship is created as a result of your use of the Service. 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. If you see this on offer, get it. For fun, pour it alongside something heavily peated, say the Port Charlotte 10 and/or a Ledaig 10. Just to gauge as to how different in phenolic level this whisky actually is, and how there’s still enough of the maritime element in there to make it scrumptious anyway. Lovely stuff. 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.Nice oily texture and mouthfeel. The chalkiness or oak on the nose carries through to the palate.It’s not off-putting, but it’s quite prominent and not something I recognise in the standard 12 and therefore unexpected.Light chocolate notes alongside warming sherry and dried toasted nuts.Ever so slight saltiness. Nice, but not the big brother of the standard 12. This year's release has an ABV of 60.1%, compared with 56.6% in the 2022 release and 55.1% in 2021, and it is bottled non-chill filtered. Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.