Sunday, 14 December 2014

Whisky Advent Day 14: Balvenie 12yr Single Barrel - First Fill

So it's Sunday and the revocation of my weekend freedom is nearly here and I have a whisky from one of my favourite distilleries to stave off the sadness.

Balvenie 12yr Single Barrel First Fill has been aged in first use bourbon casks for at least 12 years, each bottle is from a single barrel and is hand labelled. They are bottled at near cask strength (47.8%) and without the addition of colouring.

On the nose it is sweet  with candied almonds,vanilla, honey, orange, cinnamon, caramel, toffee, and roasted chestnuts. It is a wonderfully light and sweet nose that is well balanced with decent complexity and character.

On the palate it is again very sweet with a nice oily mouthfeel. There is dried orange, apple, honey, syrup, cinnamon, toffee, some coffee, caramel and some more winter spices. The finish on this dram is nice and long sweet as the start too. All this added together sounds very heavy and sweet, however, somehow this malt avoids becoming cloying or one dimensional and is quite light and refreshing despite having a fairly robust body.

I'm a big fan of this dram and for me once again Balvenie 'dun gooood.

Balveni 12 S.B.F.F can be bought from Master of Malt for £44.14, a steal!

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