Balvenie 15

Boston went into Cleveland this week, to play the team with the best record in all of Baseball. And if not for Daniel Bard having given away last night’s game, after Tito had inexplicably pulled Buckholz in the eighth inning, they would have taken the first two from the Indians, and maybe with that, the lead in the AL East. But never mind, because that’s not what I planned to post about. Instead, tonight I want to get back to the common ground for all readers of this blog -- single malt scotch whisky.

Balvenie is a well known, and well regarded highland malt, but one that probably doesn’t get its due. I seem to recall learning that Balvenie remains family owned and operated, which in itself doesn’t mean that it’s a great whisky, but does merit some credit in today’s world, where many of the distilleries have been gobbled up by the big beverage conglomerates. It’s nice to know that some whiskies maintain their independence, for whatever that’s worth.

Another distinctive thing about Balvenie is that their different age statements are actually different whiskies; so the twelve is not just two years older than the ten, it’s also finished in sherry casks, giving it an entirely different finish, and a noticeably different taste. So the thing with the fifteen, the subject of tonight’s posting, is that it is bottled from a single cask. Which means of course, that every time they bottle their fifteen from a new cask, it’s really a new whisky, one that will taste different from the last bottle of fifteen you drank.

Jackson calls Balvenie voluptuous, a word I like, and one we don’t often hear any more, especially as we all lurch inexorably toward illiteracy. Anyway, voluptuous -- rich, full bodied, soft around the edges, not harsh, zoftig. And that describes the fifteen very well. It is a rich, malty full bodied highland whisky. And it’s surprisingly smooth and easy drinking for such a strong malt; this bottling came out at almost 48 percent, 96 proof as we would have once said. But it really drinks no sharper than a 43 percent whisky. It only needs a drop of water to open up, and to release the caramel malt flavor. Long finish too -- one of the clearest characteristics of a good whisky in my opinion. It reminds me of the Macallan Fine Oaks -- there is nothing other than the malt whisky here. The flavor isn’t muddied with sherry, or port, for example. Now I know that Balvenie finishes their twenty-one in port casks, and that’s a very nice after dinner malt. But I prefer the simpler and more honest flavor of a pure malt whisky, one that is not contaminated with any other flavors or tastes.

One other thing: this fifteen is very affordable. I can’t remember the exact price, as it’s been in my cabinet for a new weeks, but I’m fairly certain that it was under sixty dollars. And today, when the world market is bidding many malts up to stratospheric levels, this whisky remains a pretty good buy. So there you have it: voluptuous but affordable. What more could a man want?