Review #197 - SMWS 10.217 'Journey to the Fest' - Bunnahabhain 13 Year

Bunnahabhain - a single malt that's sometimes available from independent bottlers, but isn't the most common. Often you'll find the peated variety, and a little less often, this unpeated variety (or extremely lightly peated, to be accurate, but the smoke is essentially undetectable); the resulting flavors can vary quite a bit depending on the cask treatment and which bottler it comes from.

This bottle spent the first part of its life in an ex-bourbon hogshead, like many of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottlings do, before it was moved into a Heavy Toast Medium Char (HTMC) hogshead for finishing. That could add some oaky flavors to the mix, more than you might expect to find in the typical 13 year Scotch with refill aging.

SMWS 10.217 'Journey to the Fest' - Bunnahabhain 13 Year

Scotland/Islay - Single Malt

Price Paid: USD 160 (2021)

Current Locally Available Price: No longer available

Age Statement: 13 Years

Strength: 60.6% ABV

Cask Makeup: Ex-bourbon hogshead, finished in a refill HTMC hogshead

Details: Not chill filtered, no color added; distilled October 3, 2007; 224 bottles

Tasting Methodology: Reviewed 3 times over 11 months; bottles at 100%, 90%, and 80% (blind tasting) fill levels at times of review. Tasted in a Glencairn glass each time, rested 10-15 minutes

Nose: Dense and dark, generally quite sweet: caramel dipped apples, cherries, a decent amount of floral perfume, some dried fruits like fig. There's a mulchy, damp, mossy side to this as well, along with fresh flowers and dark chocolate; then, more fruits of prune, grape, and tangerine. A bit of a chameleon overall - many different sides to this.

Palate: Rich and viscous with a thick mouthfeel. There's a mix of sweet and sharp spice notes - cinnamon apples, wine gums, orange, chocolate, and caramel popcorn add the sweet side, while nutmeg, oak, light roast coffee, paprika, chili, and peppercorns add the spice. With time to air out, more dark fruits of plums, raisins, and prunes arrive; the back of the palate gives us an interesting mix of Fig Newtons and savory peppered steak.

Finish: Medium-long, with lots more oak and perfume. It's quite warm, but not overwhelmingly hot, and there's a nice oily character that lingers; spices comes from chili and pepper, while sweetness comes from vanilla and cinnamon sugar. In the aftertaste, there's a bit of lingering wood smoke.

Final Note: Quite an interesting bottle, with very inconsistent tasting notes across our sessions with it. There's an interesting mix of fruit and baking spices throughout the experience, and the perfume and oak notes grew stronger on the palate and finish over time. Plenty to dig into during a longer tasting session, but not necessarily the most cohesive experience. Because of the price of SMWS bottles, the value factor does suffer a little bit here.

Our Average Rating: 7.4 / 10

In the current whisky landscape of increasing prices and variable quality, we've added a value rating to our reviews that relates to the score and the available pricing of each whisky. This roughly equates to a 0-10 scale; no reviews so far have exceeded a score of 10, although it is technically possible for the formula to produce a value rating higher than 10 with a high enough score and low enough price.

Value Rating: 5.46