Bunnahabhain 18 Year Old

Side by side blind with Arran 18/Tamdu 15/Glenallachie 12 PX/ Glengoyne 21/Glenturret 12
This is by far the best I love, The Glengoyne is the new bottle, may need let sit longer in the bottle. Bunna is the clear winner vs the rest
Clean sherry on the nose , tones of raisin, dry fruit, chocolate. Lingering for very long

12th February 2022

Great experience. Wonderful

6th February 2022

Not as good as I was hoping. I LOVE the 12 and thought the 18 would be a step up. It’s good don’t get me wrong, but it’s not great, and certainly not from the price @£110. I much prefer glendronach 18 or even the 15 and there both better value too.

26th February 2021

I bought a bottle after hours of investigation of Bunna 18, I tried the 12 earlier this year and wanted to go for the 18, because it's widely said to be one of the best 18 out there. The 12 was ok, but the main thing about 12 is the alcohol note, it's a bit high.

The 18 is smoother, with more sherry influence.. it says on the back label that it's matured exclusivly in sherry casks, but David Brodie said it's 60% bourbon vs 40% sherry on a distilliation tour @ whisky.com?

Anyways, the alcohol note isn't as high as in the 12, the 18 is much better.. that's no secret because it's matured for 6 more years. It's smoother, with more sherry and I am 98,6% sure that bourbon casks was used in the maturation, though the back label spell it differently. I enjoyed it, whiskybase rates it 88% avg, ralfy rates it both 90 and 87 points in his reviews - Scotch 4 Dummies gave it 3.5+.

I'm going to give this 4 out of 5, the alcohol note is a little offputting for a 18 year old whisky.. it's not that high but it's prominent, maybe it needed more in the palate to become 'one of the best 18's' as it's said, more smoke perhaps?

I am comparing this to Talisker 18 which I had earlier this year, which is a very gentle one. It was voted the best whisky of the year back in 2007 by the World Whiskies Awards... If Talisker 18 had more sherry in it, it would probably be one of the best whiskies of all time, truly unique.

Bunna 18 is very good but I was expecting more on the palate. If I could rule I would put more smoke in it. It is slightly peated though, as it's said only 1-4 ppm. Which is a low number for smoke.

Anyways, cheers from Iceland!

12th December 2020

A classy dram. I'd been highly fond of the affordable nature of Glen Scotia Victoriana of late and they have a lot in common in their sherried sweetness and their gentler approaches to more commonly robustly dealt out Isla style angles. This one is of course twice the price and its elegant approach to meeting very similar aims comes through, not to denigrate the Victoriana which I still merrily churn through, however this Bunnahabhain is just nice little find which I feel could appeal to both keen novices and more seasoned palates and be loved by both.
In short, a swirling dance with the more fulsome side of whisky but without being beaten round the gullet with it.

10th December 2020

I love peaty scotches, but coming back to this after a few months on the peat blew me away. Amazing depth of flavour that you can chew on while drifting off to sleep.

31st October 2020

Excellent dram, the MOM notes are very, very accurate I think. I really like the Mouthfeel an complexity of this dram, it has multiple layers whilst being very approachable, a real quality scotch. I've had 4 different Bunna's over the past year or so and none have disappointed and all have hit a very high standard, this is another quality dram and probably my favorite out of the 12, toiteach a dha, and ceobanach (which is also a superb peated expression).

16th March 2020

Just a word to all those wondering about "batch" variability, since it comes up here so often. I'm shocked that in the world of Scotch connoisseurs this is not common knowledge. Scotch is almost like wine, there are good vintages and bad. An 18yo bottled in 2015 would have been distilled in 1997. One bottled in 2018 is not going to be the same. Might be better or worse, or within the range of subjective preference. But its a different distillation, and DIFFERENT BARRELS. The distillery likely tries for consistency, but its not possible. And they might try to increase volume, or change other things, even try to improve the flavour, but all of these things will increase variation. Every bottle of Single Malt should be required IMHO to have the date of bottling.

23rd November 2019

Light earthy peat, I'm not getting massive sherry bomb notes. Its a wonderfully balanced sherry, mixed with coastal saltiness and nuts. Absolutely amazing

9th November 2019

About the 5th or 6th 18 yr old I tried in the past year or so, this is a solid choice for the price. Nice dark color if it is really not coloured... layers of complexity with just a slight touch of sea salt on the finish, would recommend.

29th June 2019