hello you multi-malt treated malt zippers from Malta oh that's quite a multi malt mention that
one and thank you to Andreas ninjaman for The Malt Mansion introducing Ralphie review
953 yeah 953 whiskey reviews and we've got a lot more to get through but all in good time
let's focus on the whiskey which I'm going to review for you today which has recently come
out in the market and for particularly in the UK for The Malt hunters and I'll do an extras
on malt Hunters uh sometime next year because there are fascinating breed of whiskey drinker
um this is a cask strength version of Bona haben and I'm reviewing it for you today because if
you come across it in your travels I'm going to recommend it to you it is a substantial
delicious and quite eventful single malt whiskey put a glass and tell you all about it
buddhauben and I here it is
we go back to the 1980s we do um when I was first in a bar in Glasgow um I was drinking
younger's number three which was a really nice ale at the time lovely flavor my favorite and
I used to spend more time in bars in those days because I was a lot younger and that's what you do
and I don't regret a minute of it not a minute was wasted anyway they had Bona haben up on the Gantry
behind the bar behind the beside the glenfirk and it was between the Glen Phillip and the Laphroaig
and it was a bar that attracted quite a few folk from the highlands who had migrated
to Glasgow to look for work and these were my neighbors these are the folk that lived around
me and in in my little neighborhood in Glasgow called partick and what a bunch of characters
lovely lovely people even the bad ones were lovely people but this is Bruno have been
Cask strength 12 year old bottled at wait for it you're gonna love this hold on to your bonnets
56.6 right it says at the bottom here in little gold writing it's got a little magic Talisman
spell here which of course just entices me likes me to go and buy this bottle it says
give me a second yeah I need one of these no added color non-chill filtered this is the 2022 Edition
by the way I think it's one of the better additions which is why I'm mentioning it now
what do you get on the nose well let's start by saying you don't get any Pete and that may
surprise you because this is an Isla Distillery where some of the most pitted Whiskey in the world
is is actually made um but not this version of butter happen but you can get a version of Bernard
which is heavily pitted and I'll be reviewing that sometime next year lovely stuff highly
popular amongst the independent bottlers in a form called stoicher it's how you'll recognize amongst
the independent bottlers Peter haben is called stoicher yeah just giving you the information
just just spitting it out but I bet better take a bit of time now let's give this a noise
wonderful full aromatically malted Sherry it is a complex Sherry monster on the noise first Contact
what's amazing for the high strength of this whiskey 56.6 you're noticing something which
doesn't have that fire in it that you would expect for the alcoholic strength this immediately tells
me that highly active casks have been used in the maturation of this whiskey and as soon as
you get on to sipping it onto the palette that assumption is very quickly verified and backed up
foreign y tiny drop crisp dry
sour now a little bit of sweetness coming through
the sensation range in this whiskey is amazing the Umami on first taste is absolutely popping
sweet sour salt Savory and bitter everything every one of these Sensations is assertively
in this whiskey for one simple reason it's well matured and it's a cask strength simple as that
when you taste it you're amazed at how palatable it is such is the richness of the casks which by
the way I can tell you right now from my experience are wet casks because there's
previous content of these Sherry Cask directly influencing this whiskey in a quite profound and
definitive way and it doesn't hang around it's a big explosion of a soft explosion of flavor so
it's a slow motion explosion on the arrival but the Finish doesn't really it doesn't really come
too much apart from a few loose tannins some fresh brewed dark Breakfast tea and a little bit of
Pickled ginger you need to add water to this and when you do something spectacular is going
to happen I am adding a full teaspoon five milliliters full teaspoon full of water to
this and then do you know what I'm going to do I'm going to add a half a teaspoon full of
water that's another two and a half milliliters that's seven and a half milliliters I've added
almost but not quite a third of the volume to that whiskey to bring it bring it down and something
happens almost immediately and I'm going to Spring the glass forward so you can see it
look at that scotch mist frankly Mark mates that is spectacular an absolute immediate endorsement
on the quality of production this has an absolutely not been chill filtered it's not
just vague scotch mist it's not a mere hint of mist this is absolutely full-on tonding cloudy
and that is just in this more day and age at this moment in time with
the price of whiskey that malt mix is just what we're looking for authenticity honesty
Integrity of delivery for the price that we are prepared to pay let's come back to the nose again
now we're getting a bit more of the bunah haben signature which is light fruity
multi slightly confectionary sort of slate Cherry medicinal cough mixture very slight
um but generally it's a substantial multi-soft flavored whiskey that's how I first encountered
Buna have been back in the 1980s when I first moved into Glasgow and went to my local bar
just because for the only reason it was the one immediately down at the end of the road so it's
the least walking should I say staggering distance to get home [Laughter] hey it's logic uh taste
are much more
Tangy multi-arrival turning sweet and sour Floral the rose petals dates nutmeg
caramel soft caramel quality stuff you know not the high Heist Supermarket chocolates
caramel the tasteless caramel no no this is the real confectioners high-end caramel flavor
some really integrated spicy vanilla there's a few green notes slight mintiness particularly
as you go towards the end of the development towards the finish the Finish is lingering
soft soft soft tannins quite syrupy um my opinion is there's a lot of previous Cask
content intermingled with this butter happen and it hasn't done it any harm whatsoever what in fact
has happened I don't think when they filled these Sherry casks that they were quite empty
Because the actual absolute strict definition of an empty Cask is vague in the scotch whisk
industry there you go boom just giving you the knowledge there just giving you the knowledge
some distilleries absolutely clean out and rinse the casks and others they give them away slush
and say no a little bit left and freeze this previous content let's have a quick check in
a sniff of The Cask is it sound is it sweet right fill it and you can get amazing whiskey from that
absolutely amazing whiskey this I mean a look at the scotch mist in that yeah I'm gonna
call it even closer you really need to see this look at that are we into Focus yet there we go
and it's natural color and it's absolutely it's the Vitality is just it's helping to deliver
standard whiskey in an exceptional way there's no way you could get all this out of the 40
bottling from the old days and even the 46 bottling that you get now generally most of
the time seriously good whiskey seriously good whiskey always in people's readers but here The
Cask strength version It's just kicking it right out to the park word of warning
if you're just starting out in whiskey you might want to buy a bottle but don't open it until
you've spent about a year doing your time-served apprenticeship with glenfiddick and Glenn Martin
she getting you're getting your bearings because to give to this someone for a first time it's
really going to be an assault on the senses you need to acclimatize over time to appreciate and
enjoy and importantly to get the most out of this single mold absolute wonderful stuff really it's
and the thing is it's a contradiction has a gentle signature
and there's some gentle aspects to this but the sheer intensity there's nothing gentle about
that nothing at all you're getting our absolute original authentic experience even for an old
hack like myself that's been slurping whiskey for 40 years you know when I opened I had the
first few glasses about this I really had that flicker of excitement genuine excitement which I
I'll find I generally find nowadays from independent bottlings but there's official
botlinks that are really getting it right because they're Keeping the Faith with us
they informed the Discerning the experienced whiskey drinkers so cheers Bernard job well
done mission accomplished highly recommended in fact I might as well give this a mock mark
a full Integrity mock mark
as time goes on in the glass the aromatics come out you get a bit of Turkish delight bit of cherry
a bit of gooseberry and then it changes again and then you get this kind of mocha
coffee chocolate mocha moment you think this is there's so much conversation in this glass
um this is yeah it's a 90 out of 100 mop mix it's a more mark an Integrity monk mark
what an absolute Joy now if you want to pop back again
for my extras 953 extras which will be coming along shortly
um I will be talking about the shades of filtration
if you want to know any more you have to watch the video the shades of filtration
it's basically for those who are buying Whiskey on a regular basis it's need to know information
in the meantime for all of you who watched the online Scotch whiskey Awards hosted by
myself and Roy from aquavit thank you so much for supporting the oswiss we Roy and I are absolutely
delighted with the increased audience this year as people realize just how relevant and what a
unique opportunity the oswas are the online Scotch whiskey Awards in bringing the industry together
as a communication corridor from the industry to the customers to the repeat customers to
the regular customers and back into the industry again and we know from the feedback we're getting
from industry people that they find that the whole concept really quite exciting and very refreshing
and um if you haven't subscribed by the way please do just to click that button to subscribe
subscribe to ralphie.com because we're coming up to the end of the year so I'm going to be
I'm going to be telling you I'm just going to be dropping all these fantastic whiskey selections
right up to the 31st of December and you wouldn't want to miss them would you
and if you don't want to miss the extra content the extra extras the more of a deep dive
why don't you subscribe to my channel on patreon it's called Ralphie r-e-l-f-y cheers mom mates