Whisky base the incredible source for anything about a whisky bottle you might be looking for does not need an introduction. To celebrate their 50,000th!!!! (yes 50K) bottle on their ever expanding database, they have bottled this lovely whisky a “Burnside”. We all know there is no such distillery, and WB do not hide the fact that this is a teaspooned Balvenie with a tiny amount of Gleniffidich. After some Q&A on twitter regarding “Teaspooning”, i will quickly explain that some distilleries (such as the Balvenie, Glenfarclas etc) do not allow Independent bottling of their whiskies (for many reasons: maintaining the brand, quality etc), so when they “sell” a cask, or let an Indie bottle a cask, it has to be under a pseudonym not indicating the distillery name. By teaspooning the cask with some other minute quantity of another single malt, they create a blended malt which according to the SWA laws can not then be bottled as a single malt, and will not bear the distillery name.. Ok, enough about teaspooning. I am a fan of the Balvenie, and I have no idea how this lovely bottling escaped under my radar, but gladly my good friend Ofer agreed to share some with me (Cheers mate!)
Let’s try the dram at hand:
Burnside 1989 [WB], 51.7 % , (out of stock)
Nose: Quite a bit of wood on this. Dried coconut. Beeswax. Wood spices and varnish. Vanilla, apples and peaches. Quite a fierce nose . Very interesting. Big alcohol too.
Palate: Peppery and a bit spicy. Mint. Quite tannin-y,multiple layers of wood influence. No sherry. Apple crumble , wax , varnish,canned pears in honeyed nectar. Quite a bit of older wood notes too shine – love it.
Finish: Apple pear and peach. Wood spices. Polished wood. Dry.
Quite woody, but in a good way. I love this profile, and this is clearly a Balvenie. Good stuff, at the right ABV. plenty oomph, and plenty of everything, in a great balanced melange. Good job by WB.