Balmenach 2013 8yo Single cask #131 Infrequent flyers 58.4% ABV.

This whisky was blind tasted during the Blind Tasting Consortium’s 25th session, the whiskies were selected by Billy, @BillyCowan on Twitter.

Appearance

Very light gold in colour, the medium thick swirl line beads up immediately. It drops swift thin legs with teardrops hanging below the swirl line. #BlindDrams

Nose

The nose on this is very light. I think it’s a slow burner. Eventually balsa wood with wood wax appears, spices are coming, but it’s all rather laid back atm. #BlindDrams

Bitter lemon comes through, but not much more atm, it may need a drop of water. #BlindDrams

Palate

There’s a fair dollop of spices on the palate, abv is higher i’d say. More ex bourbon cask type vanilla pods, cinnamon, cask char, bitter lemon, and chilli heat. #BlindDrams

With a drop of water there is a peachy flavour, white pepper comes out too, adding water to the glass shows it’s better drunk fresh poured without water, for me. #BlindDrams

Finish

Medium in length, more of the palate notes are here. It does edge towards raisins, and perhaps milky chocolate, the spicy do stay warming. #BlindDrams

My thoughts

This whisky had a slightly awkward way about it for me. When i’m doing whisky tasting i pour my drams approx 30 mins early, to let them open up a bit, breathe as such. At the time of getting to this whisky i thought it was a real slow burner, so i waited longer, then added water, and that made it worse. I poured a new glass and realised that this is a whisky that is best drunk after pouring.

I would say this was my least favourite of the 5 blind drams tasted during this session, it’s not the worst iv’e tasted, but it was a little hard work for me.

The Blind Tasting Consortium use the hashtag #BlindDrams when doing tastings, use Tweetdeck to search archived tweets for 125 blind tasted whiskies as of today’s.

Banner image courtesy of @jwbassman_

Bottle image – Master of Malt.