A New Balvenie

Balvenie The Sweet Toast of American Oak
Classification: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Country: Scotland
Region: Speyside (Dufftown: 57.459N, -3.128W)
Mash Bill: 100% Malted Barley
Strength: 43.0% ABV (86.0° Proof)
Color: Unknown
Filtration: Unknown
Maturation: 12 Years in ex-bourbon, 8-12 weeks in new American Oak
Price: $64.99 (Total Wine)

I've been told through the years that I tend to be overly verbose when discussing things that interest me. Keeping this in mind, I decided to lead off with a tl;dr summary for those that may not be interested in reading the entire post, so without further ado:

tl;dr summary - an enjoyable single malt with a terrific nose, pleasing taste, weak finish and mysterious production characteristics. Ultimately this malt is betrayed by its disproportionately high price. Personally, I'll pass on purchasing future bottles unless pricing comes down into the $50 - $60 range.

Overview

Balvenie’s new series of whiskies, officially called ‘The Stories Series’ has begun hitting store shelves in my neck of the woods. Comprised of three ‘stories’, each is told through a unique single malt expression (and corresponding marketing campaign) from the fabled Speyside distillery in Dufftown. The stories are, in numerical order, ‘The Sweet Toast of American Oak’ (12 years old), ‘The Week of Peat’ (14 years old), and ‘A Dark Day of Barley’ (26 years old). Today I’ll be focusing on the first story - The Sweet Toast of American Oak, but I have little doubt that story #2, The Week of Peat, which must be a re-labeling of Balvenie’s annual Peat Week release, will be getting some screen-time on this blog in the coming months. As for the third story - A Dark Day of Barley - being a 26 year old single malt, one would expect a hefty price tag and Balvenie did not disappoint with an MSRP of $799. I had the rather surreal experience of encountering a bottle of this super-pricey malt while popping into what can only be described as a ‘humble’ strip mall bottle shop, the type of place one would expect to find plenty of Fireball but not uber-premium limited releases. To the shop’s credit, they were charging MSRP with no added kickers, but alas, despite the Indiana Jones encountering the Golden Idol awe I felt holding the bottle, I could not bring myself to spend that much coin on a bottle of hooch. I bet it’s tasty stuff though…

Balvenie's stated goal and purpose of the Sweet Toast of American Oak was to produce a sweeter, fruiter Balvenie by utilizing new oak that had been deeply toasted before charring, the theory being to maximize the exposed wood sugar available to the malt during maturation. Balvenie sourced these new American White Oak barrels from the Kelvin Cooperage in Kentucky. The coopers at Kelvin first toasted each barrel over a white oak fire (not a gas-fueled burner) before charring the barrel and shipping to Balvenie. Once at Balvenie, the coopers at the distillery re-toast the barrels:

Once the barrels safely arrive on Scottish soil, the pre-toasted casks are given an extra deep toast in The Balvenie Cooperage to drive the heat further into the wood and bring out as much flavour as possible. As Head Cooper, Ian McDonald asserts: “We’re adding extra life and flavour into the wood. After it’s spent 6 weeks in transit from Kentucky to Dufftown, our signature Balvenie burn refreshes the wood, bringing out all the flavour, colour, vanilla.”

This second toasting of an already toasted and charred barrel seems curious to me, I would love to know more granular detail in regard to why this was done. My cynical side wonders if the barrels were shipped from Kentucky intact or as palletized loose staves. If shipped as loose staves rather than fully-assembled barrels, perhaps this second toasting in Scotland is to ensure barrel integrity and consistency mitigating any structural issues resulting from reassembly of the barrel in Scotland. My non-cynical side wonders if this second toasting in Scotland was done purely to improve the overall influence of the barrel on the malt; if so, I am genuinely interested in the science behind this second toasting's improvement on the barrel.

Regardless, once the second toasting is complete, 12-year old Balvenie that had been aging in ex-bourbon casks is re-barreled in these new toasted-charred-toasted barrels and left to sit for eight to twelve weeks. After that, the malt is dumped, proofed down to 43% ABV and bottled. Far beyond wondering what the reasoning behind that second toasting of the barrel is, my two biggest questions regarding this malt are is it chill-filtered and is it artificially colored. There is no official word from Balvenie in regard to either of these questions and I'm left again with cynical and non-cynical thoughts. Cynically, I would not be surprised if the answer was ‘yes’ to both. Historically Balvenie has both colored and chill-filtered their non-single cask and lower-tier offerings. If that precedent remains true with this offering, I find it quite perplexing, particularly in regard to chill-filtration as doing so seems counterproductive. If one of the goals of this new malt is to extract as much wood sweetness and character as possible, then why chill-filter the malt which will in all likelihood remove some of that wood influence? Non-cynically, I can either give Balvenie the benefit of doubt or choose not to fixate on the label's ambiguous disclosures in these two areas. I'll tip my hand on where my feelings fall on these two questions in my impressions below, let’s get into the dram.

Nose
Malty sweetness, fruit sweetness, particularly peach, lots of peach for me. Minimal alcohol. Gentle oak. This is clearly a malt whisky on the nose, but there are subtle bourbon notes as well, particularly that charred/fired wood smell prevalent in so many bourbons. A funny aside, when I first removed the protective capsule covering the bottle's topper, the smell of the wood used atop the cork immediately reminded me of how my childhood Lincoln Logs used to smell. Sadly the cork's wooden topper now has no distinctive smell, so it was a one-time shot of nostalgia.

Taste
Totally different than the nose. Spicy and more oak than the nose indicates. Spice eventually fades to a mild sweetness with that peach note reappearing and concludes by fading into oak.

Finish
Short to medium-short. Oak, spice, and fruit sweetness.

Overall
Very interesting how the nose screams one impression while the taste delivers a very different impression. Lots of fruit and gentle oak on the nose, a beautiful smell wafting from the glass. Spice and oak dominate the taste up front but eventually yield to the fruit sweetness. Incredibly, there is zero wood resin / astringency in this malt. When I first heard about 12-year old Balvenie being transferred to new American oak for an additional three months, I was immediately concerned. The power of new oak cannot be understated and with great power comes great responsibility - new oak will push whiskey to either dizzying highs or terrifying lows. One of the potential lows is an overpowering wood resign, a somewhat bitter, waxy vibe that dominates the flavor. It seems to me that Balvenie’s chosen cooperage not only ensured the new barrels were seasoned properly, but toasted to just the right degree to strike a balance between char and caramelized goodness. There is near-zero alcohol prickle which again makes one think this was a well produced and well cared for whisky throughout its distillation and maturation.

On the negative side, this is not an overly nuanced or complex whisky. Enjoyable yes, but not a layered experience yielding an array of evolving flavors and aromas. The two weakest aspects of this malt for me however are the finish and the price. The finish is woefully short and leaves you wishing for more, particularly after that delightful nose. Indeed, the experience peaks at the beginning with the nosing and goes downhill from there for me: nose < taste < finish. Second, the price. I paid $64.99 for this bottle but feel it would be more realistically priced in the $50-$55 range which would also make the bottle more comparatively priced to its fellow 12-year old shelf mates. Shockingly, on a recent visit to the Total Wine where I purchased my bottle, I noticed they had raised the price of this malt to $72.99 which even further bolsters this criticism. Curiously, Balvenie's own 12 year Single Barrel First Fill expression retails for the same price yet comes bottled at a beefy 47.8% ABV and is non-chill filtered to boot (proudly proclaimed on the bottle's label)!

At the $70+ price-point there are many other compelling offerings such as Macallan's various 10-12 year variants, Glenmorangie's Nectar D'or, or Bunnahabhain's 12 year. Of course there is a Balvenie tax to account for, but even so, in this instance, the Balvenie tax is greater than the Macallan tax which is astonishing and reeks of bad value for my personal money. This brings me back to my feelings on the ambiguity of whether this malt has been artificially colored and/or chill-filtered. In my opinion, any malt commanding a $70+ price-point should be presented free of artificial color and non-chill filtered. Optionally, but ideally, a malt at this price-point should also be offered at a higher bottling strength, say 45%+ ABV, as well as contain an age statement, however I typically offer leniency over the absence of either so long as the malt in the bottle is particularly enjoyable.

If interested, Balvenie's official product page for The Sweet Toast of American Oak:
https://us.thebalvenie.com/stories/the-sweet-toast-of-american-oak