Bunnahabhain 15 Years Old 2010 Cask #05012 (The Whisky Jury)

The Whisky Jury is a Belgian-Dutch independent bottler with a track record for digging out heavily-peated parcels from distilleries best known for unpeated work. This 15 year old release is exactly that: Bunnahabhain Mòine, the distillery's heavily peated spirit, bottled from a single first-fill Oloroso sherry cask. Cask 05012, distilled in 2010, bottled in 2026, 210 bottles at 56.4% natural strength. Bunnahabhain Mòine, the Scots Gaelic for peat, runs at roughly 35-38 ppm phenols on the malt, putting it firmly into Caol Ila and Lagavulin territory by spec, though the Bunnahabhain still character shapes the smoke into something earthier and less medicinal than the usual south-coast Islay reference points. The first-fill Oloroso butt is the active type the cask has been freshly seasoned, so wood-derived sherry compounds transfer aggressively into the spirit and dominate the maturation. The pairing puts dense, nutty, raisin-driven sherry against farmyard phenolic peat. The bottler's own description points to thick, luscious, nutty sherry support underneath the smoke. Expect dried fig, walnut and toffee from the Oloroso, with the smoke reading as wood-fire ash and smoked meat rather than iodine, and a long peppery-sherry finish at the high cask strength. Single cask, natural colour, non-chill-filtered.