Christmas: the pinnacle of conflation between mass consumption and Christian charity. The new religion and the old coming together and confusing themselves. The instinct of the body to consume, conflated with the instinct of the spirit to draw toward immortality. Or, another way to see it, it's an opportunity to justify guilty pleasures that you have no business indulging in. Like ''hey, you get me this $250.00 bottle and I'll get you that nail and hair package, and we'll call it a gift and it'll be awesome''.
As we ponder on this today, December 28th, we indulge in a bottle of Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask.
86 proof, finished in rum casks.
We sniff around.
Simon likes the nose. Similar to the Balvenie 12 Double Cask. Honey, apples, vanilla.
The rum specifically doesn't come through on the nose.
Trevor gets a little salt.
We can pull a bit of black licorice on the occasional sniff. When you hit the right angle.
We agree with Scott: the nose is really about the apples, apple pie, candy apple.
We cheers.
Little heat, little sweet, little cereal/malty.
Scott points to the oily, nice mouthfeel.
The sweetness on the front and bitter finish plays together to give it a little bit of a rum feel. Like a Bacardi feel.
There's a bit of debate whether this is too hot or just right.
The apples and the honey are nowhere to be seen, but some of us can get the black licorice.
Ratings: Kyle's pick so he starts us off. He's pretty disappointed with this, not all he was hoping it would be. The mouthfeel is good but it's the most bland scotch he's reviewed so far after 40 scotches, and his rating reflects that. He goes 55. Scott is on the same page. He like the strong apple nose, but the palate was a let down. He goes 59. Kyle stole Simon's blurb, but he's not quite as harsh. He does get a bit of uniqueness with the bitter vanilla rum flavor, but that said, it is quite bland. He's had great experience with Balvenie before, rating the Doublewood 12, the Single Barrel 12, and the Weak of Peat pretty high, but this one kind of fell flat. He goes 67. Trevor is on the same wavelength. He would go in the 50s other than the little Bacardi flavor he likes, which bumps it up a notch. He goes 62. Sean adds that he likes the sweetness here, but the heat is a little more than he'd like. 65. Averages out to 63.3.
Overall: Rum cask sounded fun, but this one didn't nail it. It just seems like the rum cask took all the nice flavors we love out of the Balvenie distillate (the honey, the apples) and instead gave it a more bitter, bland, and confused twist that just didn't hit the spot. Also, taking the price into consideration, $145.00 CAD here in Ontario, this drops to the bottom of our value scale. Not a bottle we would recommend.
Cheers!
The S&P Crew
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