Whisky Review: Prime Malt Bunnahabhain 10 Year/1999

Prime Malt is a series of single cask releases from Gordon Bonding, which I can find basically no info about. They were usually reduced to a relatively low strength (40-43%), but also tended to be at bargain-basement prices.

The bottle states that particular whisky comes from a refill sherry cask that held heavily peated Bunnahabhain spirit. However, to my knowledge, Bunnahabhain was not distilling peated malt between its earlier 1997 experimental run and the sale of the distillery to Burn Stewart in 2003. This makes me wonder if this was actually unpeated spirit that was aged in a cask that used to hold peated whisky. Either way, the spirit was proofed down to 43% before bottling - I suspect that it was chill filtered, but the color makes me think that no caramel was added.

Thanks to Florin for the sample.

Prime Malt Bunnahabhain 10 Year/1999

Nose: clean malt, fresh hay, herbal/floral, sherry with a sour tang, berry sweetness, ink, graphite, cigarette ash, light earthy peat, bubblegum, vanilla, honey, pencil shavings. After adding a few drops of water, there isn't any drop in intensity, but it becomes more malt-focused, with the sherry (top note) and grassy/herbal peat (bottom note) sliding into the background a bit, with the vanilla and perfume notes growing stronger.

Taste: opens with malt and wood sugars overlaid with a thin veneer of sherry sweetness, segues through malty vanilla into mild oak tannins with a faint peat back, with the earthy/ashy peat coming into focus at the back, while there are orange peels overtones throughout. After dilution it becomes a little watery up front, with the malt fading a bit while the sherry becomes a stronger top note, while the oak tannins and peat becomes more pronounced at the back.

Finish: vanilla malt, light oak, earthy peat, whispers of sherry

This is, in my opinion, a very good whisky at a very good price. It pulls off a similar trick to Highland Park 12, opening sweetly, then switching to a more bittersweet peaty mode.

The only place I've ever seen it for sale is The Party Source and I'm still kicking myself for not grabbing a bottle when they still shipped spirits. At least I got to enjoy this little bit of it.