Balvenie Founders Reserve Cognac bottle

For our quarterly virtual tasting @PBMichiganWolverine very generous to provide a sample of an older Balvenie 10 dating back to 1980 that was bottled in a cognac style bottle. The nose starts floral and creamy with light lemon and lime zests in the background then vanilla seeds and a faint chocolate followed by poached pears, orange blossom and grapefruit zest that transitions to ginger, cloves and mild oak spice with low ethanol burn. The taste is a thin to medium mouthfeel starting floral and creamy with light lemon and lime zests then a moderate bitter and sour spice that slowly fades to vanilla gelato and cacao nibs followed by poached pears, candied orange peel and grapefruit zest that transitions to ginger, cloves and a mild oak spice with low ethanol burn. The finish is medium length with lemon lime candy, powdered ginger, and a mild black pepper spice. The nose on this is very creamy with florals dominating but allowing moderate citrus notes to come through along with mild spices for a beautiful balance which carries over to the taste but has a higher spice than I'd prefer that eventually fades to allow those creamy citrus notes back through and finished mildly pepper with some lemon lime fruits. Thanks @PBMichiganWolverine for providing this for our little group to taste as I doubt I would ever find this today for anything I'd be willing to pay and it was really fun to be able to try an older bottling of Balvenie.

I had a small taste while pouring out samples for our tasting with @Richard-ModernDrinking @ctbeck11 and @pkingmartin This is incredibly rare, early 80s Balvenie 10 yr old. I don’t have the slightest clue on why they have this in a cognac bottle shape, but I’m guessing it was because back in the early 80s, cognac was all the rage. Did Balvenie think so little of the consumer that he/she would pick this up accidentally thinking it’s cognac? Anyway—-I don’t think this can be found anymore, except in auctions. My bottle was purchased over 15 years ago, but decided to dig it out for our tasting. Now, I don’t think any shops have this, but it’ll show up probably in secondary ( not sure of todays price, and I can’t remember what I paid 15 yrs ago ). I need to preface this that I’m not really a fan of Balvenie , as I am of say Lagavulin, Springbank or those whiskeys that are more in-your-face. This is delicate. It’s light, with aromas of apple juice, soft oak and ginger. Nose is amazing, and for me that took this from mediocre to pretty good score. Very elegant in the aroma. Taste is a step down—vanilla, white grapes. It’s good—-but for me, I’m just not a Balvenie fan ( only one of theirs I really liked was the Tun series ). So, my score may not really be reflective of how good, or not, this is. But I’m really appreciative of trying something so rare.