Secret Speyside 23y/o (Balvenie) 1999 East Village Whisky Co. 47.8%ABV

A Secret Speyside that is apparently from Balvenie - there is a hint on the label - the rocket has Burn on the side of it - a subtle hint to Burnside which refers to independently bottled Balvenie. This bottling has gone under the radar as it is described as a Blended Malt - Burnside is 'teaspooned Balvenie' basically a practice where a teaspoon of another single malt would be added to the Balvenie so it could not be labelled as a single malt. These days its rare that anyone actually goes around with a teaspoon adding whisky to casks - its just some distilleries do not want their brand name used by independent bottlers. Lovely elegant dram with tropical fruit notes far better than core range Balvenie . Matured in a refill bourbon hogshead for 23 years only 70 bottles of this whisky were bottled and given the low abv (cask strength, non-chill filtered, natural colour) and low number of bottles this may have been a leaky cask, a very active cask or been matured in a part of the warehouse where the angels were particularly greedy.

Official tasting notes translated from German

Nose: well-integrated alcohol, salty, vanilla, sweet, very elegant. After a little breathing time, fruit gums and a light lemon note emerges.

Palate: pepper, malt, vanilla, with a light woody maltiness at the end. Elegance as in the nose but with more complexity and development of the aromas.

Finish: Sweetness prevails at the end.