Bunnahabhain Sherried Tobacco (The Vintage Malt Whisky Co Ltd.)

The Cooper's Choice is the standard single-cask line from The Vintage Malt Whisky Co, sitting a step below the premium Golden Cut tier but holding the same single-cask, non-chill-filtered presentation philosophy. Brian Crook founded the bottler in 1992 after a long career in the Scotch industry working with Auchentoshan and Morrison Bowmore, and the Cooper's Choice name has been the Vintage Malt's flagship ever since. This Bunnahabhain comes from cask 1158, a heavily peated single-cask release named Sherried Tobacco for its expected flavour profile, bottled in 2024 at 53%.

The cask programme is American oak ex-bourbon for primary maturation followed by a Pedro Ximénez sherry finish. American oak gives the long primary stretch its vanilla and coconut lactone backbone, with the heavy char layer adding caramelised-sugar depth underneath. PX is then layered on top: Pedro Ximénez grapes are sun-dried before fermentation, concentrating the must to near-syrup intensity, and the cask wood carries that as raisin, fig paste, treacle and dark chocolate during the finish.

On heavily peated Bunnahabhain spirit, the dual-cask programme produces the smoke-against-sweetness profile the bottler's name flags. Expect dense raisin and chocolate-covered cherry from the PX, vanilla and toasted oak from the bourbon underneath, and the campfire-style phenolic smoke from the Mòine distillate threading through the whole. The combination is one of the more proven pairings in Islay finishing, with the heavy peat carrying through the wine sweetness rather than getting buried beneath it. Single cask, natural colour, non-chill-filtered.