The Balvenie continues to go from strength to strength as owners, William Grant & Sons, continue to showcase their wares. As someone who’s both watched and even participated in the growth of their brands in Australia over the last 15 years or so (in a former life, I presented a couple of Glenfiddich & Balvenie tasting events for the local distributor at the time), it’s been fascinating to see the brands take on even more depth and gain traction in the local market, now that WG&S have their own Australian operation. The recent launch of the Balvenie Tun 1509 raise the bar further…
One of the points of differentiation for The Balvenie has been – quite rightly – the focus on its quality and craftsmanship. In terms of its actual size and annual output, The Balvenie is one of Scotland’s larger distilleries, but that – in no way whatsoever – implies a degree of mass production methodology. Rather, The Balvenie maintains some wonderful traditions in its production and focuses on quality over quantity. One classic example of this is the maintenance of the distillery’s malting floor and the fact that they continue to malt a portion of their own barley on site. (I say “portion”, because it’s around 10% of their total requirements these days, but it’s still a nod to traditional production and – let’s face it – with the exception of the on again / off again malting at Benriach, The Balvenie remains the last distillery on the mainland, north of the Highland line, to do their own maltings). It’s also worth noting that the taking of the middle cut during the spirit run continues to be done by hand by the simple water test, rather than by strength, or by time, or by when a flow meter or computer tells them to!
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It’s this craftsmanship, then, that the brand continues to espouse and the latest incarnation of this is the fantastic Balvenie Craft Bar, which opened in Sydney this week. It’s a pop-up bar in Surry Hills, that transforms into a Museum of Craft! The Balvenie has teamed up with a selection of artisan producers and craftspeople to showcase and demonstrate the skill, tradition, and – yes – craftsmanship, that goes into making quality products. The idea is that you grab a well-crafted dram of Balvenie, and then take in and admire the excellent work of the featured producers who still practice the art and craft of some specialist, and often traditional, trades. These included works by a metal worker, a cheese maker, a guitar maker, a surfboard maker, a furniture maker, a bicycle maker, a boat builder, a stone sculptor, a tailor, a shoe maker, a drum maker, and a book binder! The craftspeople involved are on hand at various different session times (four or five of them were present on the opening night; others will be present in the other sessions), but the point is, you can chat with them directly and discover more about their passion.
The opening night of the pop-up bar also doubled as the launch for The Balvenie’s new release, the Balvenie Tun 1509 bottling. Around 80 or so people gathered at the venue to try the full Balvenie range, and to enjoy the “oohs and ahs” when the Tun 1509 was unveiled. The Balvenie Tun series (originally Tun 1401) was a vatting of numerous casks that were vatted (combined or blended) together in a large marrying tun, where they would spend several months melding and merging together before being bottled as a special release. However, Tun 1401 only had a capacity of 2,000 litres, and so after nine releases in the last three years, the bottlings’ popularity and demand had come to exceed supply. Tun 1401 has thus been “suspended” and Tun 1509 has been built with a capacity closer to 8,000 litres. In addition to being more practical and sensible to work with, it also means they can do one run for the entire world, whereas the previous tun meant doing isolated vattings in different packages for different markets, just to ensure it all got around.
The first release of Tun 1509, launched on the Monday night of the Balvenie Craft Bar, is a no age statement bottling at 47.1%; is non-chillfiltered, and has been made from a mix of 42 different casks that were selected by David Stewart, malt master for The Balvenie. The make up of the vatting was 35 American oak ex-bourbon barrels and seven European oak sherry butts. In many ways, such a proportion in a vatting is not untypical of the make-up of most regular commercial releases from other distilleries, albeit the tun series is on a much smaller scale. The joy here is that you get to taste a slightly different interpretation on the Balvenie template, but at a higher ABV and with no chillfiltration. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing!
Once the assembled guests each had a glass of the Tun 1509 in their hands, William Grant’s resident whisky specialist, Dick Blanchard took the stage and introduced the drink. Being late to the service bar, my wee dram was particularly wee, and perhaps had not quite enough in the glass to give this whisky a serious critique and assessment on the spot. However, it didn’t take long to appreciate that the whisky had a serious and complex nose: Oak, fruit, honey, ginger, malt, spice, and resin were all evident. On the palate, the dram gave a few hints of some age, and there was enough to suggest that more than a few of those 42 contributing casks must have had a couple of decades under their belt.
The word from the top brass is that there are just 60 bottles of Tun 1509 in Australia (57 after tonight’s event!), and it is likely to retail for somewhere around the $420 mark. Unconfirmed rumours of the whisky’s average age being around 23 years old were being whispered in hushed tones around the room, but it would be wrong of me to assert or spread such whispers further here. 😉
As a pop-up event, the Balvenie Craft Bar is in Zenith Interiors from Monday 17th to Thursday 20th November, between 4pm and 6pm each day. You can book in via the link on The Balvenie’s Facebook page. As an added bonus, if you ever wanted to shovel some barley on the maltings floor but feel you’re unlikely to get to Scotland for the chance…you can try your hand at turning the barley as you walk into the venue! And, if you’re keen on a beaut Old Fashioned, be sure to try The Balvenie’s interpretation – with plum bitters and a healthy whack of PX, it’s a gorgeous drink.
Thanks, and congratulations go to the William Grant & Sons team for – as always – organising a seriously good, top shelf event, and for injecting a bit of fun and left-field thinking into their whisky events.
Cheers,
AD
PS: You might also like our other Balvenie articles like An audience with Balvenie and David Stewart or perhaps Balvenie 14yo Caribbean Cask
