Edradour Ballechin 8yo
Official Release | 46% ABV
The crowd pleaser
I recently forced a near-mandatory whisky night on close friends just for the reason that as the summer gets busy and holidays, camping trips, children camps, and all other manner of activities inevitably get in the way of connecting.
There must have been something in the water at the time but in my circle of close friends, we’ve got nearly 20 kids all within the span of five years. As you can imagine, summer gatherings are more of an exercise in running a zone defence between all the adults to ensure no blood is spilled or bones cracked.
While it’s a great way to give the kids a solid community feeling and burn off pent up energy, it’s hard to catch up with friends when you’re constantly being interrupted and can only get a few sentences in before water is demanded, noses need wiped and snacks need to be doled out to these tiny calorie blast furnaces. I’m not complaining, because I realise I’m quite fortunate to have such a mini community of like-minded and driven people. But when you just want an old-fashioned chin wag with your pals without distractions, you need to get creative.
So as part of the attraction and enticement to stay up far too late when we have early starts with our little gremlins, I offered to crack open my bar. Most of the bottles were fair game to be poured: from favourites to the chance to explore new whiskies without having to fork out for a bottle. As luck would have it, the only night that worked for everyone meant we needed to invade a friend’s house as he was the lone parent home that night. Rather than packing up the entire bar, which is nigh impossible given some recent purchasing sprees, I was forced to pick around 20 bottles.
I packed some special ones including an unopened birth year bottle which we cracked that evening, some familiar favourites, and some oddballs I thought might be worthwhile. This stumpy little Edradour was part of that spread. If I wasn’t forced to bring a small selection, it’s likely this bottle would have been reached past for flashier bottles, familiar names, or bigger age statements.
I like the label design, being a modern print that emulates vintage-style labels, and magpie eyes will easily pass over this whisky to something flashier. I also adore the bottle shape. It’s stumpy and sturdy with a low center of gravity for tipping resistance and fits on all manner of shelves, something the likes of Spey, Octomore, and even Compass Box cannot easily achieve.
As it usually goes when presented with a varied spread of whisky, was hard to know where to start but in the case of this wee Ballechin, it only took one person to take a punt and proclaim their surprise and enjoyment of this dark liquid. In no time at all, glasses were emptied, splashes of water rinsed out the last vestiges of the previous contents and we hydrated ourselves in a vain attempt to stave off the indomitable early morning head pounding. This Ballechin received unanimous head nods and lip-smacking for everyone around the patio table.
Peat and sherry is one of my favourite combos. It just seems to work. The raisiny-sweetness and earthy peat tang is a synergy that’s favoured by many, including my friends sitting around the table. We all agreed the next day that we stayed up way too late and our kids were up too early, with bleary eyes and a solid thump in our temples. However, the catch-up, laughs, and game of darts made it all worthwhile and it was something we sorely needed.
Review
Edradour Ballechin 8yo, 28/04/2022 batch, Edradour 2013 sherry cask #572, Ballechin 2013 ex-bourbon cask #23/24/25, 46% ABV
£50-ish and readily available. (CAD$100 paid)
Nose
Smoked and brown sugar-glazed ham. Raisins lightly drizzled with maple syrup. Wood charcoal smoke from a well oxygenated charcoal BBQ. A small touch of cold ferrous-oxide… or rusted steel. Soft, sweet, slightly smoky, and unassuming.
Palate
Maple-glazed smoked ham. Smoked pulled pork fresh off the pit, with a bark of black pepper and cinnamon with a maple glaze. Cold sticky wood smoke mixed with a small amount of earthiness, not unlike the smoke ring of a heavily smoked well-aged manchego cheese. This whisky isn’t cheesy but it’s an apt description of the earthy smoke here. Dark toffee dusted with icing sugar. Background vanilla. Small amount of mouth drying barrel char puckered my inner cheeks. Retronasal is a mix of petrichor, brown sugar sweetness, and smoked meat. Very soft and mild, making it the perfect introduction to peated whiskies for newcomers.
The Dregs
For me, and the price I paid, this was a smidge of a let-down. It’s not overly complex, nor is it emphasising a single aspect - it’s just middle of the road on everything except for intensity. Personally, I find this one lacking in the flavour intensity for the price. If I could equate that to other whiskies, I would hone in on the Benromach 10 yo core range release, which scored an average of 6/10 across three reviewers at the approx. £35 price it regularly commands. I know this Ballechin comes in at a lower price in the UK (£50) compared to what I paid (£60) in one of the colonies, but in today’s economic situations, money talks. And for two years less maturation and 3% more ABV, I expect something more punchy, flavourful, and bolder especially at a much higher price. For me, it just doesn’t deliver. For my less detail-oriented friends however, it fitted the bill perfectly so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
In full disclaimer: this is as close to an official bottling or a single cask distillery release as it gets. The outturn between one sherry butt and three bourbon barrels is not that big, so my thoughts here could be quite different compared to the other Edradour Ballechin 8yo in circulation. That’s the simultaneous beauty and curse of very small batch bottlings. When they’re brilliant we sing their praises admitting that nobody else is likely going to experience it, and when it doesn’t meet our expectations or requirements, we may lament our purchase. To me, this is one of those times.
To help alleviate my potential bias, please leave a comment down below if you’ve had a different experience than mine with these small batch Ballechin 8 yo cuvee releases. The world needs to hear your voice as well, not just some Canadian typing away behind a computer screen.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB