Balvenie 21 Years Old

Balvenie PortWood 21 is the long-aged Port-finished expression in the Balvenie core range. Drawing on stock matured for twenty-one years in traditional ex-Bourbon casks before transferring to thirty-year-old Port pipes from a single producer for a finishing period, the expression carries Balvenie's classic honeyed Speyside character lifted with dried red fruit, fig and a soft tannic structure from the Port wood. This bottling was released at 47.6% ABV.

Balvenie was founded in 1892 by William Grant on the same Dufftown estate as Glenfiddich, and remains family owned by William Grant & Sons into its fifth generation. The distillery operates its own floor maltings (supplying around ten to fifteen per cent of its barley from the adjacent Balvenie Mains farm), runs an unusual setup of five wash stills feeding six spirit stills with the distinctive Balvenie Ball on the spirit still necks, and maintains an on-site cooperage.

Ex-Bourbon American white oak (Quercus alba) was charred for the original bourbon fill, breaking down lignin into vanillin and syringaldehyde and releasing whisky lactones from the wood. The fresh-fill bourbon strips the most aggressive oak character, leaving the Balvenie spirit to draw on the secondary layers of soft oak, vanilla and coconut against the distillery's honeyed Speyside profile. Typical tasting notes include fresh fruit, honey, chocolate, citric, dried fruit and nutty.