Distillery Name: The Balvenie Distillery

Distillery Location: Dufftown (Speyside)

Link to Distillery Website: https://www.thebalvenie.com/

Tour/Tasting/Experience:

https://us.thebalvenie.com/crafting-the-balvenie/tour-the-distillery

The Grant family built The Balvenie distillery in 1892, the same family that owns The Glenfiddich Distillery. Both distilleries are within walking distance, and both do a great job representing the style of the Speyside region. Glenfiddich’s style is that of fruits, while The Balvenie’s style focuses on the honey with a syrupy texture, qualities that some fans look for when getting started in the Scotch category.

The Balvenie spirit started as a component of blends until 1993 when William Grant & Sons decided to market and sell it as a single malt. The distillery uses its malting floors for a portion of its whiskies and purchases most of its malted barley from Inverness. According to The Balvenie’s Distillery Ambassador, the steeping takes about two days and the germination about five days in the warm months.

The traditional style of the distillery is without peat, but the distillery has created peated expressions in the past. In these cases, two kilns, one with coal and one with peat, work simultaneously. Interestingly, the washbacks and stills are not cleaned after a peated run (typically ten days) to transition to an unpeated version. Instead, these continue to work for several days until the peated residue disappears.

New make with peat produced after the peated run is also stored in casks and combined with whisky from the peated run to create an expression with the desired level of peat (expressed in parts per million).

The Whiskies from The Balvenie Tour 

The Balvenie Distillery tour was comprehensive and fun. It started on the malting floors and continued in the famous Warehouse 24, where we sampled two single casks expressions (A 11-year-old malt aging in an ex-bourbon cask and 16-year-old aging in a sherry butt) with the option of bottling our malt inside the warehouse. Finally, the tour ended with a tasting of five expressions from several collections of the distillery.

The Sweet Toast of American Oak ($$)

This whisky is part of The Balvenie Stories Range, a collection inspired by stories about the distillery in Dufftown, Speyside. To create The Sweet Toast of American Oak, Apprentice Malt Master Kelsey McKechnie aged the malt in toasted ex-bourbon barrels for 12 years and finished in virgin oak barrels from Kentucky for about 3-4 months. This malt is has been bottled at 43% ABV.

• Nose: Malty nose with cinnamon, vanilla, and spices.
• Palate: Toffee, vanilla, and honey flavors. The oak notes dominate the spirit. Adding water will lift the sweetness and diminish the oak influence.
• Finish: Short to medium, malty with oak and vanilla.
• Score: 3.5/5

Single Barrel 15-Year-Old Sherry Cask #11231 ($$$)

This single malt is part of The Balvenie Crafts Range, comprised of a series of ‘limited edition’ whiskies. The whisky has matured for 15 years in European Oak that previously held Oloroso Sherry, bottled at 47.8% ABV.

• Nose: Full Christmas cake nose. Love it!
• Palate: Classic rich sherry (dried fruits) and malty palate that won’t disappoint fans looking for a bold sherry flavor profile.
• Finish: Rich with baking spices.
• Score: 4/5

The Balvenie 16-Year-Old French Oak ($$$$)

This whisky is part of the Cask Finishes collection. The malt ages for 16 years in 1st fill American Oak and refill American Oak, bottled at 47.6% ABV.

Both whiskies settle in a marrying vessel known as a tun for a short period and age again for about six months in French Oak (Pineau) casks.

Pineau des Charentes is a fortified wine made from unfermented grape juice, to which a Cognac eau-de-vie is added and then matured.

• Nose: A floral and grassy nose.
• Palate: Slight citrus (lemon, green apples) with honey and vanilla.
• Finish: Medium with honey.
• Score: 3.75/5

The Second Rose 21-Year-Old ($$$$)

The Balvenie Red Rose was launched in 2008 and inspired the second one. The name comes from the annual rent Fair Maid of Galloway, Margaret Douglas, paid to King James II after her husband’s death to stay in the Balvenie Castle in the 15th Century.

The Second Rose was released in 2021 and is also part of The Balvenie Stories Range. This release matured for 20 years in American Oak refill casks and is finished for about four months in Australian Shiraz casks, bottled at 48.1%. A unique expression from the distillery worth trying.

• Nose: Fruits (i.e., Mango) and slight oak notes.
• Palate: Sweetness complemented by fruit and spices. Oak tannins are here as well. A very different expression from The Balvenie than what I am used to, so it gets points for uniqueness.
• Finish: Long and with oak notes.
• Score:  4/5

The Balvenie TUN 1509 ($$$$)

This single malt belongs to a limited edition series selected by Master Blender James Stewart. The whiskies used for this expression married in Warehouse 24 in a large vat (Tun 1509)

For Batch 7, Stewart selected 21 whiskies from three different types of casks. These are sherry hogsheads, ex-bourbon American oak, and Doublewood refill sherry butts (used to make the 12-year-old Doubledwood single malt), bottled at 52.4% ABV.

• Nose: Oak, sherry, and caramel are easily identifiable aromas.
• Palate: Vanilla, honey, and caramel. Subtle notes of spice from the oak are also present. The syrupy and rich sweetness is the driver in this expression.
• Finish: Long and sweet. Ideal for dessert.
• Score: 4.25/5

What I liked about The Balvenie Distillery Tour 🙂

• Warehouse 24 was a special place to taste two single malts drawn straight from the casks with an option to bottle them on the spot to take home.
• The tour had more detail about the production process than I expected, partly because our guide was the Distillery Ambassador, not a tour guide.
• All whiskies sampled at the tasting were very enjoyable, but getting to sample two special single malts (The Second Rose and TUN 1509) for a modest price of fifty pounds took the experience to a new level.

What I did not like about the experience 🙁

Nothing.

I can’t hide my passion for The Balvenie Distillery. The caliber of the single malts, the knowledge from our guide, and the beautiful landscape of the Scottish countryside made my day. The syrupy-dessert style of the distillery is hard to miss. In the bourbon world, Four Roses bourbons have a similar texture. If you are in Scotland, visit The Balvenie Distillery. It is worth every pound. Slainte!

Don’t miss my review on The Balvenie 14 years Caribbean Cask here.

Score: 4.5/5

Legend

$50 or less $

$51-$100 $$

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$151 or more $$$$