Bunnahabhain 30 Old Particular

I decided to take a night off of my blind tasting challenge to dive into this 30 year old Bunnahabhain that was distilled in December 1988 and bottled in August 2019 that aged in a single ex-bourbon cask which produced a total of 146 bottles that were bottled at a healthy cask strength of 57%. The nose starts with a slight hint of sea salt and light smoke that stays in the background of fruits of mango, papaya, peaches, lemon zest, and cherries followed by roasted macadamia nuts, dark chocolate and a thick caramel hug before transitioning to light minerality, ginger spice, leather and light cereal notes with high ethanol burn. The taste is a viscous mouthfeel starting with a thick caramel frosting on lemon vanilla cupcakes then a light hint of sea salt and light smoke that stays in the background of fruits of mangoes, peaches, nectarines, and cherries followed by a medium spice and light minerality that slowly fades to dark chocolate and barrel spices of ginger, cloves, leather and medium oak with high ethanol burn. The finish is long with light ash, minerality, sea spray, peaches, Meyer lemon, mangoes, papaya, macadamia nuts, dark chocolate, a light ginger spice, leather and medium oak that lingers for minutes. For 30 years in a barrel, this has aged incredibly well with a wonderful complexity and balance of flavors that has a very thick mouthfeel with a mixture of light sea spray and smoke intermixing with tropical and citrus fruits, roasted nuts, dark chocolate, light barrel spices and rich caramel with a long and lingering finish. I’m amazed with this one and decided to put it in a head to head challenge with my favorite Hazelburn 13(2020) and even though it was close, the Bunnahabhain came out the victor due to its richer mouthfeel and a better balance of flavors. Alas, it’ll be a sad day when this bottle is empty, but it appears based off K and L’s website that there are several other Bunnahabhain single casks by independent bottlers to choose from when that day does come for a fraction of the cost of what the normal 25 year would cost.