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It's not very often that I receive emails at work regarding whisky, and this one in particular was a pleasant surprise. A co-worker forwarded me the following article from The Times-Transcript, our local paper here in Moncton, New Brunswick:
http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/news/article/807160
Suffice it to say that we required no further invitation and spent our lunch hour (and maybe a little extra) at the NewBrunswick Liquor Commission store on Vaughan Harvey boulevard in Moncton. Not really knowing how much of a crowd to expect, we were surprised to see only about 10 people around the tasting counter. Mr. David Mair, the global brand ambassador for The Balvenie, had not yet arrived so the crowd was being offered samples of another Balvenie expression: The Doublewood.
The Balvenie is a speyside distillery owned by William Grant & Sons, a private family-owned company that is better known for its other more prolific distillery, Glenfiddich. While both of these distilleries are located in Dufftown within the Speyside region of Scotland, in my opinion, the Balvenie represents the true essence of a speyside malt. Oakey, honey and toffee flavours with just a hint of smoke and peat. These are the attributes of what used to be its most prevalent expression, the 10-year old Founder's Reserve. This expression seems to have been removed from production, making the DoubleWood Balvenie's most common offering. If you have the opportunity to pick up bottle of the Founder's Reserve before it disappears, I would recommend doing so. It rates highly on the value scale, and is one of my favourite malts under $50.
The DoubleWood is a 12 year-old Balvenie, matured in two different casks. It spends most of its twelve years in a traditional oak whisky (ex-bourbon) cask followed by a few months in a first-fill European oak sherry cask. This adds the sherry fruitiness and sweetness to the malty, honey and toffee flavours The Balvenie is known for. Rest assured that tasting notes for both the Founder's Reserve and the DoubleWood will be appearing in the not-too distant future on The Spirit Safe.
This day, however, belonged to the Vintage Cask.
Each year, The Balvenie malt master, Mr. David Stewart (the industry's longest serving malt master), selects a few exceptional casks of whisky aged over 30 years to release as The Balvenie Vintage Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky. These bottles are individually bottled by hand and marked with the cask #, the date it was filled, the bottling date, the bottle # as well as the total # of bottles within this particular limited edition. As one could imagine, stocks of these malts are extremely rare and difficult to find. This particular Vintage was distilled in 1976 and aged for 31 years in an ex-bourbon cask before being distributed into a total of 231 bottles in 2007. The Malt Advocate, a popular whisky magazine, rated this particular bottling as one of its top ten new whiskies of 2008: "Balvenie ages well, as this ongoing series of vintage releases proves. Incredible depth and complexity while still tasting quite lively for a whisky this old." The price tag? A whopping $800 US, according to the Malt Avocate. Here in New Brunswick, there were only 5 bottles of the stuff available in the province (where whisky prices are unusually low), at the seemingly bargain price of $616 CDN.
We perused some of the other rare whisky offerings of the Vaughan Harvey liquor store while waiting for Mr. Mair to arrive. These included 30 y-o Brora and 30-y-o Glen Ord bottlings, as well as a 28 y-o North Port (Brechin) expression, all in around the $300 range. When David Mair arrived, he apologized for being late due to problems with his connecting flights in from Paris. By this point there were around 40 people gathered near the tasting table, a mix of whisky enthusiasts and passers-by who were curious what all the fuss was about. Mr. Mair proceeded to give us a wonderful introduction to The Balvenie, explaining that is one of the few distilleries that remain under the ownership of its original family proprietors, as well as one of the very few that does its own floor maltings (and turns them with shovels!). His talk was very similar in scope to those offered as introductions at the distillery tours that I took while visiting Scotland in 2004. While Mr. Mair instructed us on the proper way to nose and taste a whisky, I noticed others around me starting to fidget, anxious to get a taste of the special bottle.
David Mair finished his introduction to Balvenie by describing selection of the vintage cask, done by David Stewart, as well as Balvenie's annual releases of 17 y-o expressions. This year it is a bottling matured for 17 years in traditional oak, followed by a few months aging in a madeira wine cask. I was a big fan of Glenmorangie's Madeira Wood expression, so this is something to look forward to. The Balvenie Madeira Cask bottles allocated to Canada will only be available in New Brunswick and Alberta. These bottles will be making their first appearance in NB at the province's annual Spirits Festival in November, retailing for about $119 CDN. Balvenie's previous 17 y-o bottlings have been very well received by critics and previous incarnations include a Rum Cask finish, Sherry Cask finish and New Oak finish. Your blogger was lucky enough to obtain a bottle of the New Oak, so the tasting notes for that expression will grace a future posting.
Suffice it to say that we required no further invitation and spent our lunch hour (and maybe a little extra) at the NewBrunswick Liquor Commission store on Vaughan Harvey boulevard in Moncton. Not really knowing how much of a crowd to expect, we were surprised to see only about 10 people around the tasting counter. Mr. David Mair, the global brand ambassador for The Balvenie, had not yet arrived so the crowd was being offered samples of another Balvenie expression: The Doublewood.
The Balvenie is a speyside distillery owned by William Grant & Sons, a private family-owned company that is better known for its other more prolific distillery, Glenfiddich. While both of these distilleries are located in Dufftown within the Speyside region of Scotland, in my opinion, the Balvenie represents the true essence of a speyside malt. Oakey, honey and toffee flavours with just a hint of smoke and peat. These are the attributes of what used to be its most prevalent expression, the 10-year old Founder's Reserve. This expression seems to have been removed from production, making the DoubleWood Balvenie's most common offering. If you have the opportunity to pick up bottle of the Founder's Reserve before it disappears, I would recommend doing so. It rates highly on the value scale, and is one of my favourite malts under $50.
The DoubleWood is a 12 year-old Balvenie, matured in two different casks. It spends most of its twelve years in a traditional oak whisky (ex-bourbon) cask followed by a few months in a first-fill European oak sherry cask. This adds the sherry fruitiness and sweetness to the malty, honey and toffee flavours The Balvenie is known for. Rest assured that tasting notes for both the Founder's Reserve and the DoubleWood will be appearing in the not-too distant future on The Spirit Safe.
This day, however, belonged to the Vintage Cask.
Each year, The Balvenie malt master, Mr. David Stewart (the industry's longest serving malt master), selects a few exceptional casks of whisky aged over 30 years to release as The Balvenie Vintage Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky. These bottles are individually bottled by hand and marked with the cask #, the date it was filled, the bottling date, the bottle # as well as the total # of bottles within this particular limited edition. As one could imagine, stocks of these malts are extremely rare and difficult to find. This particular Vintage was distilled in 1976 and aged for 31 years in an ex-bourbon cask before being distributed into a total of 231 bottles in 2007. The Malt Advocate, a popular whisky magazine, rated this particular bottling as one of its top ten new whiskies of 2008: "Balvenie ages well, as this ongoing series of vintage releases proves. Incredible depth and complexity while still tasting quite lively for a whisky this old." The price tag? A whopping $800 US, according to the Malt Avocate. Here in New Brunswick, there were only 5 bottles of the stuff available in the province (where whisky prices are unusually low), at the seemingly bargain price of $616 CDN.
We perused some of the other rare whisky offerings of the Vaughan Harvey liquor store while waiting for Mr. Mair to arrive. These included 30 y-o Brora and 30-y-o Glen Ord bottlings, as well as a 28 y-o North Port (Brechin) expression, all in around the $300 range. When David Mair arrived, he apologized for being late due to problems with his connecting flights in from Paris. By this point there were around 40 people gathered near the tasting table, a mix of whisky enthusiasts and passers-by who were curious what all the fuss was about. Mr. Mair proceeded to give us a wonderful introduction to The Balvenie, explaining that is one of the few distilleries that remain under the ownership of its original family proprietors, as well as one of the very few that does its own floor maltings (and turns them with shovels!). His talk was very similar in scope to those offered as introductions at the distillery tours that I took while visiting Scotland in 2004. While Mr. Mair instructed us on the proper way to nose and taste a whisky, I noticed others around me starting to fidget, anxious to get a taste of the special bottle.
David Mair finished his introduction to Balvenie by describing selection of the vintage cask, done by David Stewart, as well as Balvenie's annual releases of 17 y-o expressions. This year it is a bottling matured for 17 years in traditional oak, followed by a few months aging in a madeira wine cask. I was a big fan of Glenmorangie's Madeira Wood expression, so this is something to look forward to. The Balvenie Madeira Cask bottles allocated to Canada will only be available in New Brunswick and Alberta. These bottles will be making their first appearance in NB at the province's annual Spirits Festival in November, retailing for about $119 CDN. Balvenie's previous 17 y-o bottlings have been very well received by critics and previous incarnations include a Rum Cask finish, Sherry Cask finish and New Oak finish. Your blogger was lucky enough to obtain a bottle of the New Oak, so the tasting notes for that expression will grace a future posting.
Finally, the moment arrived. David
Mair removed the bottle from its wooden case and unpeeled the plastic surrounding the top of the bottle. Cameras flashed as he offered the first drink to an elderly lady seated near him, asking her if she would care to be the first to try it. After indulging her, he continued pouring for the rest of the crowd - no measuring, just pouring by hand from the bottle and giving us each roughly half an ounce. Pretty generous given the price of the bottle! The crowd quieted somewhat as everyone got their first taste of the 31 y-o whisky. Your blogger wasn't the first to get his sample, but he wasn't the last, either. Patience has its limits!How was it? Surprisingly perky given its age. Lots of the honey and toffee one expects of a Balvenie, with some lighter floral notes on the nose, mixed with vanilla. A bit more smoke and peat than I was expecting, and this was in the reflected in the taste as well. It was rich and oily in the mouth and had a great, medium-length finish. Mr. Mair confirmed the presence of the extra smoke and surmised that they may have used more heavily peated maltings at the Balvenie back then.
My co-worker and I spent some time talking to a reporter from the Times-Transcript, not a whisky enthusiast himself, who was trying to get a true feel of how significant this tasting was. I think he sensed the excitement from everyone in the room and the appreciation shown both to David Mair and the organizers of the event. The link to his article is given below:
http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/search/article/808532
All in all, it was a wonderful opportunity to taste a rare old whisky (that didn't disappoint), meet a great brand ambassador with some other whisky enthusiasts, and it didn't cost a penny - the best lunch hour from work I've ever taken!
Special thanks to Stephen Lewis for the photos!
Great essay, Mortie. I feel as though I attended!
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