Blended Malt Scotch Whisky, 'Burnside 14 Year, Chateau Latour Barrique'

• Blended malt Scotch whisky selected and bottled by The ImpEx Collection
• Cask #24789
• Distilled at an undisclosed distillery in Banffshire, Scotland (Speyside)
• 100% lightly peated (5 ppm) barley
• Water is sourced from springs in the Conval Hills
• Aged 14 years; finished for 3 years in a first-fill red wine barrique from Château Latour in Bordeaux, France (no record of the original cask)
• Distilled April 2011 and bottled September 2025
• 265 bottles produced
• Lush notes of red berries, wildflowers, and honey, suspended over a pleasing current of cereal malt, evolve into black currant, stewed plums, and vanilla oakiness with an accent of cocoa powder
• No added coloring
• Non-chill filtered; 63.8% ABV

A brand rather than a distillery, Burnside is a textbook example of a “teaspooned” malt (a blend in which a tiny amount of malt whisky is added to a primary single malt component, thereby creating an entirely separate marque that cannot use the primary distillery’s name). Since Burnside’s parent company is William Grant & Sons, the chief co-conspirator here is Balvenie, likely with an assist from Glenfiddich. With newmake that is characteristically sweet and honeyed, offset by a tiny amount of peat, Balvenie has been an industry leader in the category of finished whiskies, and though the provenance of this bottling’s original cask is unknown, three years of finishing in a first-fill red wine barrique offers an elevated version of the Balvenie classic house character.