Bunnahabhain Toiteach-a-Dhà
Peated NAS Official Bottling | 46.3% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
Not the peated version of their 12yo
Digital media’s interplay with our purchasing habits
Some of you might roll your eyes but I would generally label myself as a mega-consumer of digital media.
My day job allows me to work from home so coincidentally, I have the ability to consume lots of digital content while I work, toiling away running various engineering calculations, writing incessant reports, and foraging for my next tidal wave of projects (I’m a consultant).
During the day, YouTube is my primary avenue, with my subscription list comprising a 50/50 mix of automotive and whisky channels. Can’t travel for a distillery tour? I’ll watch several videos to see if it makes the “to visit” list when I eventually make my way to certain countries during vacation. And during the evenings, once the kids are tucked in, I’m often found strolling around the neighbourhood with my cantankerous old lady of a corgi and young husky pup, burning off energy on our twice daily forays. I’m also an avid tinkerer, renovating our entire house and building cars, keeping my hands busy to reach zen-like euphoria chill-out. While walking the dogs or building something, I’m almost always listening to podcasts.
Again, my subscription lists are a mix of automotive and whisky, often learning something new, keeping abreast of new developments in these fields, or just generally hanging out with virtual friends whom I’ve never spoken to much less met (hint, hint Dramface team, we’d love a few more podcasts please). I remember several times where I’ve been toiling away in the evening and my wife walked by, asking why I was giggling while listening to friends I’ve never met. A vivid example was Jen and Rachel from The Grail and their participation in a Dramface podcast where I had to stop what I was doing for fear of cutting off a digit in a saw while laughing at the podcast antics.
While listening to the hours of digital content and spying the forest from the trees, there are a few distilleries that are hot spots of discussion, for better or worse. Benromach, Deanston, Bunnahabhain, and indie Caol Ila releases are often discussed as relatively available and consistent distilleries where you can find something for everyone, often at a good value. I’m sure you have a slightly different list based on your media circles. Some of the unfavourable references in my digital avenues involve Ardnamurchan, Springbank, Dalmore, and Macallan.
Now before you get your pitchforks or digital variants, hear me out. The recent tidal wave of Ardnamurchan’s recognition of quality and performance at competitions including the Online Scotch Whisky Awards has led numerous digital outlets to discuss the merit of the distillery, positively giving them kudos when they’ve had a chance to drink the juice, or lamenting their inability to try this recognised quality malt when they can’t get their hands on it. Fortunately for me in Canada’s malt mecca, albeit still a shadow of UK’s availability, I have some limited availability of Ardnamurchan and I do agree with the general consensus of their quality.
A similar tract is followed with Springbank, where many digital media outlets have spoken with reverence of the hands-on, manual, and old-school products of this Campbeltown distillery. They often reference bottles bought years before the recent explosion in popularity and corresponding inability to purchase without sacrificing a kidney or child.
Quite the diametrical opposite is the discussions surrounding brands such as Dalmore or Macallan, where these outlets are remembering the good old days when they were distilleries producing quality liquid rather than the brands that have metamorphosed out of the distillery legacy. This includes chasing premium markets with heavily coloured whisky (in the case of Dalmore), aggressive pricing, and highly leveraged business structures. Sometimes the butterfly is uglier than the caterpillar from whence it came.
So with Bunnahabhain propping up consistently, and my experiences agreeing with the general buzz, it’s been consistently on my purchasing radar. Bunnahabhain’s local distributor/agency unfortunately let go of an influential national brand figure a few years ago, after said person fanned the Bunna embers into a roaring fire, with much doom and gloom that’s followed since their departure. I hope to sit down with this person to discus some of the inside secrets and challenges of brand ambassador duties and distribution, getting an inside tract on something that is often sneered at, plus find out some of the exciting things this person has on the go in Canada.
I know I’ve been guilty of this predilection, sometimes warranted, where a preppy, uneducated person is paid a healthy sum to peddle someone else’s hard work and wares without a horse in the race, while other ambassadors are fighting the good fight, putting their passion and livelihood into their portfolio.
Corresponding with the aforementioned departure, I’ve noticed a significant drop in our distribution of Bunnahabhain, with very few options available and increasing prices. It’s one of the best examples I’ve ever observed from an external perspective, where a key person in a team had departed, introducing a black hole which is hard to fill. In my professional life and as a ex-manager, it’s something I’ve experienced but something I had hedged against, planning redundancies and backup strategies to guard against eventualities that you hope don’t ever come to fruition.
Back to whisky and digital mediums and Bunnahabhain is often referenced as a high-quality distillate and product in its unpeated and peated forms. It’s been reviewed a few times before on Dramface, garnering 6, 7, 8, and 9/10 scores consistently across official and independent versions. The peated forms can sometimes be found as a Stoisha, the name sometimes used by independent bottlers for peated Bunna’s, or “Moine”, or the officially bottled peated Bunna expressions. On Dramface, other sites and across the YouTube and podcast spheres, peated Bunnahabhain are well reputed even at a young age. So with few peated options available to me, especially at normal person prices, I took a punt on the official bottling. If the official bottling is good, then it stands to reason that independent bottles or other special releases should be better and worthy of the chase and my credit card details.
Review
Bunnahabhain Toiteach-a-Dhà, NAS peated official bottling, 46.3% ABV
£43 and readily available (CAD$100 paid)
Nose
Prototypical oloroso sherry notes among a fresh ocean coastline smell and a light dry peat note are nicely found throughout. Raisins and walnuts. Brown sugar. Sometimes I catch a whiff of maple syrup glazed smoked ham poked with cloves - an interesting find. A smidge of vanilla. The ABV prickle can properly tickles your olfactory sensor, something I wasn’t expecting given the proof.
Palate
The dry peat is pronounced, coming across as a dry wood smoke and balanced with Demerara sugar from the sherry. Behind these notes, I’m detecting a dark chocolate, raisins, cranberries, and walnut medley, lightly drizzled with a vanilla caramel syrup Occasionally, I get just the faintest touch of an earthy note, similar to wet dirt. As soon as I find it and come back, it has flitted away so perhaps it is my imagination. There is a slight black pepper tingle however surprisingly, there is a moderate amount of wood tannins present, drying the insides of my cheeks.
Light viscosity and a medium-short finish of dry smoke, generic sweetness, and black pepper. On multiple occasions, the black pepper and tannins in the finish have slightly anaesthetised my palate, proverbially nuking it from detecting the finer notes in this whisky or others when tasting alongside others. The palate improves with a splash of water, amping up the sweetness to match the dry peat notes.
The Dregs
The nose is quite balanced and good, in my opinion. The palate just seems more imbalanced than the nose. I poured myself a dram or two of the well-regarded Bunnahabhain 12yo and the differences on the palate are immediate and noticeable. The Toiteach A Dhà has much less vanilla and sweetness while amping up the black pepper and tannins. We’ve previously reviewed and scored the Bunnahabhain 12 yo with a solid 6/10, of which I agree with, relegating this peated version to a 5/10 based on the more imbalanced palate and the 20% price increase for me over the standard 12. That said, after checking UK retailers the 12 yo and Toiteach A Dhà are very similarly priced. This puts me into a somewhat precarious position. I think for the same price as the 12yo in UK markets, this Toiteach A Dhà makes more sense, hitting the right price for the flavour experience and presentation. So I will amend my personal score of 5/10 to a matching 6/10 score with the caveat that if the prices in your area have the 12yo and the Toiteach A Dhà at the same level, then the latter is fair money. If you’re unfortunate like me, the more premium price in my local markets for the Toiteach A Dhà might cause me to falter. The aforementioned niggles have relegated this to a daily-sipper and is recommended to be purchased when on sale or offer.
Coincidentally, I reviewed this Bunnahabhain alongside a 7yo cask strength Wolfburn that featured a light peat content and sherry maturation component, which on paper should stack up quite well against this Islay powerhouse. Even watering down the Wolfburn to a similar ABV, the palate of this non-age stated Bunnahabhain is still lesser, although peatier compared to the Wolfburn. For roughly the same price in my area once equated for the ABV content, the Wolfburn stomps this Bunnahabhain. For the lower and more appropriate UK market prices, I think this is appropriately priced for the experience, however unfortunately international markets like mine are getting a bit hosed with the price vs experience balance here.
Will I be chasing indie peated Bunnahabhain in my future based on this official bottle and the digital media buzz? Hard to say. Unless some enter my local market at a relatively acceptable price, or I can manage to snag one at auction at a good price - which is becoming near impossible commanding upwards of £80 easily - I’ll be hesitant.
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB
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