2006 Blackadder Raw Cask Bunnahabhain Moine 6 Year Old Cask Strength Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml)

Blackadder proprietor, Robin Tucek, is on a mission against the 'amelioration' of whisky - be it via chill filtration or the addition of caramel to add colour, he's dead against it. Tucek's Blackadder selection aims to keep your whisky experience as authentic as possible. The opening rant on his company website is not only informative, but makes good sense to anyone interested in getting the most for their whisky dollar.

He writes, "Most malt whiskies bottled by the distillery owners are a marriage of several different casks. These big cask vattings are then often chill-filtered and coloured with the addition of varying amounts of caramel before being bottled. Even whiskies that are not chill-filtered are normally bright-filtered. Chill-filtration - when the spirit is chilled to freezing point or below prior to bottling - is done for cosmetic reasons, as it removes any possibility of cloudiness. Unfortunately, it also removes many of the natural fats, oils and flavours in the whisky which in turn removes a great deal of the individual character of a whisky as the esters, or flavour congeners, in the spirit tend to gather around these fats. The more a whisky is chilled when filtering, therefore, the greater the proportion of fats and esters are removed. And caramel has its own flavour, which is added to that of the whisky. In fact, the majority of malt whiskies are treated in this way when bottled. Bright filtering also removes a large part of these fats and esters with losses of around two to three percent of the cask volume when bottling".

Single Casks of fine non-filtered, non-coloured single malt whiskies are nowadays becoming rather hard to track down. Indeed, casks of some of the more celebrated and powerfully flavoured malts are becoming like hen’s teeth to get hold of. But when you do manage to track down one of these rare masterpieces... wow! Then you know what you've been missing. This is another top notch selection from Blackadder.

Tasting note: The brilliant pale straw appearance is almost water like. Opens with moderate scents of ginger bread, almonds and hints of dark chocolate. Several minutes exposure releases sweet, earthy peat notes as lanolin and choc fudge enter in the final inhalations. A briney, sooty undercurrent accompanies the vanilla malt in a superbly balanced delivery; barely a trace of heat from start to finish as the sweet sooty peat fades with late suggestions of cocoa in the aftertaste. Great stuff! 60.3% Alc./Vol.