Balmenach 1993 Connoisseurs Choice Gordon & Macphail

Balmenach 18 Year Old Deerstalker

Balmenach does not have any official bottlings (bar the Flora & Fauna) and is only bottled by Deerstalker. There is a 10 and 12 year old, but we are lucky enough to try the 18 year old. It matured on a sherry cask. Balmenach closed in 1993, but in 1997 Inver House Distillers reopened it. They also produce gin since 2009. The nose is a weird...

Score 80/100

Balmenach 27 Year Old 1983 Bladnoch Forum

Let us put another couple of casks of Balmenach head-to-head. They are sister casks after all. I will start with this Bladnoch Forum bottling, a Balmenach 1983, cask 2411. The sparring partner is cask 2413, bottled by A.D. Rattray. Honeysweet and creamy nose on all sorts of yellow fruit. Mirabelle, pineapple, peach. Some juicy apples too....

Score 86/100

Balmenach 14 Year Old 2001 for Save Lars Whisky

After the peated Bruichladdich and the bourbon-matured Auchentoshan, we wanted something special for the third and final bottling of the Save Lars Whisky. After more than a year of looking for the right cask, we finally found it in this outstanding Balmenach, a fruity Speyside whisky which matured for 14 years on a refill sherry cask. Fairly...

Score 84/100

Balmenach 8 Year Old 2008 Connoisseurs Choice

I must confess, the last time I tasted a Balmenach was when I released my own Save Lars Whisky over a year ago. This youngling from 2008 is a vatting of one sherry and several bourbon casks and bottled under the Connoisseur Choice label from Gordon & Macphail. The nose is both sweet and mildly sour, which does not seem to work well. It has a...

Score 79/100