Monthly Archives: January 2025

Whisky of the Month

Bunnahabhain 44 Year Old

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Hands down this was our best year as a club and we are going to celebrate the fruits of our labours with the oldest and possibly rarest expression we have ever shared together. What a way for us to share in the 17 Year anniversary of Expensive Taste KW whisky club.

Bunnahabin 44 Year Old

Single Malts of Scotland – Directors Special

42.4% ABV

$1865.00 (Private collection)

Bottled from a Single Cask (Sherry butt).

Producer Tasting Notes:

Nose: 

At first a fruity mix of plum wine, caramel cake spread with quince jam, marshmallows and bubblegum. Chunky gingerbread, fresh out of the oven, is served with a cup of cardamom tea. Elegant wildflowers – daisy and meadowsweet – decorate the scene.

Palate: 

Juicy texture, with soft florals and fresh peppermint leaves followed by damp staves of oak, like barrels of Armagnac resting in a cellar. Fruity tangerine, heather honey and mango play with more austere flavours of tobacco and rooibos tea. Exceptionally complex.

Finish: 

Layered and lengthy, with rounded menthol notes, soft liquorice and dusty wood panels adding accent to the finish.

This was the crown jewel tasting bottle from our 17 Year club anniversary tasting in January. Simply I am at a loss for words to describe the “WOW” factor of this Bunnahabhain 44 year. This was independently bottled by the Single Malts of Scotland group and was sourced from one of our member private collections. By far the oldest expression we have had a club and certainly one of the best in terms of overall flavour and deliciousness. There was still plenty of the normal “Bunna” notes backed by varying layers of sweetness. Was bottled under their traditional 46% ABV, but that did not take away anything from the intensity of the flavours. A potentially dangerous whisky that you would want to have multiple drams of it, but we were limited to just over 1 oz. each as we shared it with our 19 members. The overall feedback was great and we were certainly blown away with the most prestigious and rare bottling we have ever tried as a club. Long live the “Bunna” in all it’s 44 Years of glory!

Whisky of the Month

Glenmorangie Signet Reserve

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This one was actually acquired from the LCBO and was a last minute addition to the evenings tasting menu and a polar opposite from the Ardbeg Y2K that will be sure to appeal to those with a love of Highland spirits. There is certainly some love amongst the club membership for previous releases of Glenmorangie’s Signet, so this one caught the eye and it fit into our budget for the anniversary tasting party.

LCBO: 46% ABV

$715.00

Inspired by a winsome cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, Signet Reserve is distilled from a chocolate malt(a heavily toasted barley malt) that imparts espresso, tiramisu and bitter dark chocolate notes ageing in Sherry, bourbon and new oak barrels adds butterscotch, vanilla and spice notes.

Tasting Notes by The Producer:

Nose

Deep and powerful aromas. Dark chocolate sponge cake and intense espresso coffee. As the nose develops, more coffee and chocolate flavours mix with hazelnut cream, orange zest and muscovado sugar.

Palate

A big mouthcoating whisky with a texture that coats the tastebuds from the first sip. Chocolate truffles, toffee, treacle and fudge. Then notes of Turkish coffee and roasted coffee beans. Some toasted cinnamon emerges mixing with orange oil, citrus, milk chocolate raisins, then raspberry.

Finish

Incredibly complex flavours of coffee and chocolate develop in the lengthy finish. More creamy toffee eventually finishes in the familiar flavour of tiramisu.

In the order of tasting we did this one last out of the 3 anniversary tasting bottles this month. I would categorize this as a “dessert whisky”, something akin to an aperitif. Still a fantastic overall tasting experience and happy to have explored this one. The consensus with the club members though was that we had a hard time differentiating why this one was pretty much double the cost of a regular bottling of Glenmorangie Signet. While delightful to the palate and a great finisher for this evenings tasting lineup we were left scratching our heads as to why we didn’t just go for a normal Signet as opposed to the reserve version. Certainly worth a try, however the bang for the buck proposition, just does not add up at the price point.

Whisky of the Month

Ardbeg Y2K 23 Year Old

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Also known as the “Millenium Spirit”

“A glitch in the Ardware”, reads the inside of the box. Ardbeg Vintage_Y2K is a series of limited releases of whiskies distilled in the year 2000. Each one will represent a different side of the distillery, with no two whiskies alike. Ardbeg Vintage_Y2K 23 is a single malt Islay Scotch whisky matured in oloroso and bourbon casks for 23 years.

Bottled at 46% ABV.

Notes from Ardbeg:

Nose:

Herbal, sweet and fragrant with subtle perfumed smokiness. Zesty lemon balsam, linseed oil and walnuts a touch of water and the flavour intensifies emitting Heather honey a touch of creosote(bitter and oily like turpentine) and a tiny trace of tent canvas.

Palate:

The texture is fizzy with a real effervescence on the tongue. At first the flavour is intensely sweet then shifts as aniseed(licorice), toffee, digestive biscuits, peppermint, menthol, tar and coffee grits 

Finish:

The sooty/Tarry flavours keep building until they finally dissolve into a long lingering aftertaste of antiseptic lozenges, bitter oranges and oak tannins.

This was such a preculiar whisky, anything that states a touch of tent canvas in the nosing notes might scare someone off on this expression. However it was a fantastic overall 23 Year Old whisky with an amazing backtory from Arbeg as they laid down spirit back prior to the hoopla about the the Y2K bug back prior to the calendar turning tto 2000. This expression was released a few years back but we were able to secure one from one of our members private collections. Thank you for the suggestion and would highly recommend you try this one out should the opportunity present itself.