Cadenheads Balmenach-Glenlivet 11yo 2024 London Shop Bottling & Girvan 15yo 2024 Edinburgh Shop Bottling

Cadenheads Balmenach-Glenlivet 11yo 2024 London Shop Bottling

Region: Speyside

ABV: 55.3%

Price: £55.00 

The 2024 London Shop bottling is an 11-year-old Balmenach, distilled in 2013 and re-racked into a Tawny Port cask in 2018 before being bottled in 2024.

Nose

The nose opens with dark chocolate, cherry liqueur, bran flakes, dark brown sugar, marzipan, red currants, raspberry purée, with a backbone of toffee/fudge. There’s also some grape must and something slightly more acidic, unsweetened apple juice with a little lemon squeezed in. Alongside this there’s a herbal, earthy aroma that’s present too. The alcohol is fairly well balanced as well.

Palate

The palate opens with a rich, viscous mouthfeel with dark brown sugar, dates, molasses, fresh raspberries, chocolate coated raisins and oak spice. There’s also an acidity/sourness that sits alongside some of the richer flavours, but in a bit of a combative way. The finish has a medium length with mainly coffee grounds and cocoa nibs. Going back, we’re getting more oak spice, cinnamon buns and clove spice.

Nose (with water)

The reduced nose feels softer, lighter caramel and fudge are at the fore, with the dates, chocolate, raisins and coffee aromas sitting further in the background. Water seems to have simplified the nose a bit, we think we prefer it without.

Palate (with water)

The reduced palate has more of a bitter caramel note up front, but that moves back into the chocolate raisins, cherry liqueur, mocha coffee and brown sugar flavours. The mouthfeel is impacted a bit, and again we’d skip adding water to this dram.

Conclusion

Very port forward.. it’s got a lot of richer oxidised tawny port aromas and flavours, which mask the spirit maybe a little more than we’d like. One for those who like fairly powerful cask finishes, however it’s not bitter or astringent and we’d happily drink a dram.

Score: 7/10

Value

An 11-year-old cask strength whisky for £55 is a fantastic deal in today’s market.

Girvan 15yo 2024 Edinburgh Shop Bottling

Region: Lowlands

ABV: 60.1%

Price: £55.00 

The 2024 Edinburgh Shop bottling is a 15-year-old Girvan, distilled in 2013 and re-racked in 2018 into a red wine cask that previously held Longrow whisky, before being bottled in 2024.

Nose

The nose opens with a mixture of vanilla bean, white sugar, red currant jelly, and earthy peat that sits in the background. There’s more smoke than we expected coming into this, but it melds well with the sweeter cask aromas and the industrial grain spirit. We’re also finding treacle toffee, bonfire smoke, grapefruit peel and a few herbal aromas alongside nail varnish remover and light bleach notes.

Palate

The palate opens with a mixture of red berries, strawberry, currants, red grape Schloer, moving into sugar dusted shortbread, then a slightly drier, oakier finish with a wisp of peat smoke in the background. There’s a fair bit of spice from the alcohol, it definitely makes itself known, but it’s manageable and doesn’t really kick in until the finish. The mouthfeel is also pretty good and we’d say it tastes a bit older than 15 years, however this might just be the active casks in the mix.

Nose (with water)

The reduced nose becomes softer, mellower, almost dustier, and slightly more grain-spirit forward. It’s lost a bit of its intrigue, there’s still the peat in the background but the wine cask has disappeared for us and overall it’s not as interesting as before reduction.

Palate (with water)

The reduced palate isn’t too different from the unreduced, less wine influence, it’s lost a lot of the red fruits, but we are getting more peat up front, alongside vanilla, whipped cream and grain spirit. The mouthfeel maintains the texture and the spice has mellowed a little bit.

Conclusion

The mixture of grain, wine and peat is an intriguing combination, and it’s something we could see going quite wrong. However, in this case it’s worked quite well, and we’re really quite enjoying the parts coming together to create an interesting dram. It’s a bit hot on the palate, but we can look past that.

Score: 7.5/10

Value

It’s reasonably priced compared to other releases from independent bottlers.

• 10 - Perfection. One in a million
• 9 - Outstanding. Exceptional whisky.
• 8 - Great. Would seek this out.
• 7 - Good. Quality whisky.
• 6 - Above average. Happy to have a dram.
• 5 - Average. Drinkable whisky.
• 4 - Below average. Passable.
• 3 - Flawed. Noticeable negatives.
• 2 - Defective. Significant faults.
• 1 - Offensive. Pour it out.

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