Balvenie 21yo Portwood
Official Bottling | 40% ABV
Score: 3/10
Disappointing.
TL;DR
You are mad to buy this unless money has no meaning; and flavour even less
Run free; wild & spirited rabbits. Run free!
I’ve come up with a new idea for a novel.
Titled “Watershit Down” it is the story of a plucky group of ‘True Characters’ known as Congener, Flavour, Body and Texture who find their world being encroached by two invading factions; the Waterers and the Filterers.
In the story the True Characters are slowly and brutally picked off as the Waterers and Filterers invade like sea-dredgers, indiscriminately destroying everything they touch and leaving a barren, soulless landscape in their wake.
All facetiousness aside, the movie “Watership Down” left a lasting and haunting impression on me. I was perhaps 9 or 10 when it was shown at my local primary school and whilst far too young to understand its allegorical meanings - in much the same way when I read The Hobbit - the plight of these tiny rabbits that seemed blessed by the gods but cursed by the land they inhabited really struck home. None of this has anything to do with my point here but I have greatly enjoyed how personal many of my fellow contributor’s pieces have been so, when in Rome…
I accept that this is a well-ridden horse in the halls of Dramface, but the real point I’m trying to make is; in what other industry does someone slave over a product only to then harm it at the final stage?
Imagine a horse-trainer preparing a thoroughbred only to cut its heel right before a race. Or a car manufacturer that builds a supreme sports car, with an incredible engine only to prepare it by programming it in such a way it prevents it from performing to its best, right before selling it. Ok, that one is a bad example. How about you take a luxury vehicle like Range Rover who build a world-beating chassis, a four-wheel-drive system to rival the best there is, then add the most comfortable ride ever, only to fill it with the most error-strewn electrics on the market? Ok, another bad example.
Hang on, right – I’ve got one; Imagine a chef that spends his waking hours sourcing the finest ingredients, prepping them and cooking them perfectly. But then some philistine, possessing the palate of a cockroach that has never ventured farther than bin juice, unloads an unholy quantity of salt all over their meal before hoovering it up like a brand new Dyson (has to be a new Dyson, they lose their suction quickly, ‘cause they’re another example).
Anyway, you get my point I hope. There are occasions where 40% is acceptable for whisky – lots actually. In fact more than not. But, and this is a big will-distillers-finally-wake-up-and-listen but, if you’re in the world of premium malts, leave your spirit alone. Don’t be like the guy with the cockroach palate; don’t be like Range Rover (or Dyson); let your soul fly, let your character be known. Keep away the Waterers and the Filterers. Be more like Fiver, Hazel, definitely Bigwig, Dandelion and Blackberry. Chase those open fields of flavour.
That’s probably enough of that. I need to let that haunting movie go. Just let it go Fletch, let it go…
Review
Balvenie 21yo, Portwood, official bottling, 40% ABV
£215 - 245 and widely available
Score: 3/10
Disappointing.
TL;DR
You are mad to buy this unless money has no meaning; and flavour even less
Nose
Honey – it is Balvenie of course, the most honeyed of all malts – there is even some accompanying beeswax. A soft oakiness runs through the middle of it. I am lacking the complexity that is promised on the box. If I try really hard I can just about get a lick of port notes coming through. Not resiny, nor grapey, but just a hint of aged balsamic dressed on shortbread (that actually sounds like something I may have to try sometime). With a bit of airing, it becomes, as so many in the region do, buttery and ‘bready’.
Palate
The butteriness is the first thing to hit me before a trickle of honey with the beeswax not far behind. Just like the nose the port is barely evident – where is the red fruit, the resin, the grape-notes? The finish is short, featureless and flat but without the vista that can be sometimes found with a plain or calm sea. Barring some oakiness the whisky just vanishes – if the rabbit was ever in the hat, it has certainly disappeared.
The Dregs
Bah. I’m getting worse the older I get. Is it that or are some whiskies just losing their oomph, their sexiness, their vive la difference?
Balvenie was a pivotal dram in my early drinking days. One of the first bottles I ever bought, at huge personal cost for a penniless student too. It was their 12yo Doublewood and I remember chewing through layers of different honeys, I remember soft fruit sweets all over the palate; especially in the long finish. I remember adoring it and then excitedly discovering their phenomenal 15 year old, before also being lucky enough to try the first of the really old bottlings; that first batch 25 year old was just pure Balvenie perfection.
Something has changed over the past 20 years though – everything seems, well, “Watershit Down”. It simply cannot be forgotten that this is a £200+ bottle of whisky. Someone, somewhere, has face-dived into a pool of self-importance, ignorant of the sheer quality of so many other whiskies at half this price, and resurfaced waving a price tag at supercilious, approbating sycophants.
In all seriousness, this is a joke of a whisky at this price. I have at hand a ready and willing bottle of Benriach 21yo that was less than half of the price I paid here.
Incredibly these margin-busting, accountant-defying mad-cats have only gone and bottled it at 46%! Bonkers, I know. Review to come shortly…
Perhaps I’ll be in a better mood by then, with less rabbits.
Score: 3/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. FF
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Other opinions on this:
McIntyre’s Malts
The Dramble (2018)
Whiskybase
Got a link to a reliable review? Tell us.
