Bunnahabhain 16 Year Old 2008 SMWS Single 1st Fill Oloroso Hogshead Finish 10.288 Savour The Savoury Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2026) 70cl
1 of 327 bottles produced from a single bourbon cask finished in a 1st fill oloroso hogshead.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 by Phillip 'Pip' Hills who, while travelling around Scotland in the 1970s, fell in love with whiskies drawn straight from the cask. After he expanded his syndicate the Society was purchased by Glenmorangie PLC in 2004. In 2015, the Society was sold back to private investors. In June 2021, the private owners floated the holding company The Artisanal Spirits Company plc on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.
It has a unique code system where the first number refers to the distillery and the second refers to the cask from which the bottle comes. SMWS also offers the largest range of distilleries of any independent bottler. These curiously named drams really do have something for every whisky lover!
TASTING NOTES
A superb aroma greeted the Panel, one that recalled heather ales, salted dark chocolate, aniseed gobstoppers and chocolate-coated peanuts. In time we noted that it became gamey with leathery notes, plus umami vibes such as miso and salted liquorice. With reduction the nose doubled down on these savoury notes with some wonderful aromas of expensive soy sauce, treacle, tobacco leaf and dried mint. The palate when neat was similarly dominated by salty and umami sherry notes. This was rich, leathery, earthy and engaging every part of the mouth with camphor notes, hessian and squid ink. Water detonated wee fruit hand grenades everywhere: strawberry tarts, lemon sponge cake, blackcurrant coulis and blow-torched mango. Those gorgeous leathery and salty notes resurged in the aftertaste in pristine fashion. This was matured in a bourbon hogshead for 11 years before being transferred to a first fill Spanish oak oloroso hogshead.
About Bunnahabhain
Bunnahabhain is a substantial Victorian distillery which smacks of the confidence of that period. Everything about it is large, from the huge courtyard to the stills. It is these with their low fill levels and massive amount of available copper which help to craft what has always been a light style of malt. Ageing has traditionally been in ex-Sherry casks which adds a sumptuous sweet richness to the spirit though quite where the spicy ginger note, which is a marker for Bunna’, comes from is unclear. Occasionally refill casks show an almost salty edge.
Although peat levels had dropped to virtually nothing from the 1960s onwards, Bunna’ did start life smokier than it is now, something which Burn Stewart is reviving. These days, around 20% of production is heavily peated, destined for a variety of bottlings, the main one being Toiteach.
Islay’s remote north east coast might seem a strange place to find a substantial Victorian distillery, but it was chosen in 1881 by William Robertson (of Robertson & Baxter) in partnership with Greenlees Bros. as the perfect spot for his island vision. Constructing it meant not only building the distillery but houses as well, putting in a road, and adding on a pier so that casks and barley could come in, and whisky go out. It cost Robertson £30,000 (£2.6m in today’s money). In 1887, when Bunnahabhain merged with Glenrothes, Highland Distillers [now Edrington] was formed.
While other Islay distilleries sold their make as single malts and for blending, Bunna’s destiny was always with the latter. While it was used across the industry, it performed a central role in three R&B blends: Famous Grouse, Cutty Sark and, in time, Black Bottle.
Rapid growth for Scotch in the early 1960s saw the stills being doubled in 1963, the same year as the floor maltings came out. Its good fortunes weren’t to last and like many distilleries it was mothballed in 1982. Although this only lasted two years, production levels were kept low for many years. By the end of the 1980s it was finally ready to emerge as a single malt with the tag-line ‘the unpronounceable malt’. The vast bulk of its make was however still making its way into blends.
Despite an upturn in the whisky market, Edrington sold it (while retaining fillings contracts) in 2003 to Burn Stewart for £10m. Burn Stewart itself was owned by Trinidad-based conglomerate CL Financial which went spectacularly bust in 2009. In 2013 CL’s receivers sold Burn Stewart to its long-term South African distributor, Distell. Since then production levels have increased as have sales of the single malt – with significant success in Africa and Taiwan.
In 2017 Distell announced an £11 million investment in upgrading Bunnahabhain’s ‘scruffy’ appearance, and transform the site into a ‘world-class whisky destination’.
The three-year upgrade programme began in 2019 with the demolition of shoreline warehouses, which will make way for a new visitor centre.
60.8% ABV
70cl
