We saw some excellent port cask Bunnahabhain last year with SMWS 10.118. This one was distilled two years later in 2008 and comes sans peat, but is similarly drawn from a 1st fill ex-port barrique and so has quite a pink hue to it. Oily & Coastal profile.
Nose: A melange of crisp and clean with oily and dirty. Rose petals and red fruits – berries and cherries - are joined by used chip pan oil and burnt out engine cogs. There’s meatiness here – Serrano ham and reduced red wine gravy – as well as a charred burnt toast like aroma. The addition of water reduces the red fruit influence, but adds minerality – metal dust and exhaust fumes.
Taste: Oily and viscous with strawberry compote and ashy vapours (not peat smoke). Sugar dusted raspberries and cherries are merged with mineral coastal air, underlying earthiness and pepper. Water is quite interesting here – adding drinking chocolate, creamy milk and some retronasal menthol. It also increases the ashiness, adding a slightly chalkiness – both in flavour and texture.
Finish: Medium, with spearmint, flax and hay and a very nice peppery dryness.
Another highly enjoyable port cask Bunnahabhain – clean meets dirty, coast meets orchard, light meets dark, – really solid juxtapositions. Recommended.