Ballechin SFTC Oloroso Whisky Review!

A cask strength, single cask heavily-peated Ballechin, that has been fully-matured in a first-fill Oloroso sherry cask. Exciting stuff!

Ballechin (pronounced "Bell-eck-in") is the name given to the heavily-peated spirit produced at Edradour Distillery, near the attractive town of Pitlochry in the lower Scottish Highlands - around a 1.5-hour drive north from Edinburgh. The branding is a homage to Ballechin Distillery, which was a few miles from Edradour and permanently closed in 1927. Itself founded in 1837, Edradour was for quite some time was the smallest distillery in Scotland, and although it has since been beaten to that post, and has expanded its capacity thanks to the commissioning of a second distillery on-site, this is still a very small operation. That new second distillery, designed to exactly match the original, was just coming online when I was lucky enough to visit the distillery back in 2017 (full write-up here) and has more than doubled Edradour's annual production capacity - bringing it to around 325,000-litres, which is still a very small number when compared with most Scottish distilleries. Since 2002 Edradour has been owned by independent bottlers Signatory Vintage, or more specifically Andrew Symington and his brother Brian, with Signatory's operations and warehouses now also located at the distillery. Aside from the (now four) small pot stills and traditional & hands-on production methods, the distillery is widely known for its employment of traditional worm tub condensers (pictured below), where the spirit vapour from the stills is cooled back into a liquid. These older & more traditional condensers are less efficient and give less copper contact than the modern shell & tube designs, which results in a heavier, meaty and sometimes sulphurous or "funky" spirit character, which is a big part of Edradour's intrinsic style.

Worm tub condenser

The Ballechin spirit is quite heavily peated, to "not less than 50 ppm" measured on the malted barley, and despite using mainland peat - mostly sourced from Aberdeenshire - the finished whisky is actually more towards an Island style, drawing some similarities to Tobermory's Ledaig, or even some of the Islay malts in some cases, rather than the slightly lighter (but still delicious) mainland styles of heavily-peated Scotch such as Benromach's Peat Smoke or Benriach's Curiositas. Aside from the flagship expression of Ballechin 10-year old (reviewed here), the other Ballechins that you're most likely to see in Australia are the SFTC range, standing for "Straight From The Cask", which are cask strength 500ml bottlings from single casks. While the Edradour SFTC range tends to feature sherry casks, most of the Ballechin examples are matured in wine casks, such as Sauternes or Burgundy, although there have also been a couple of ex-sherry and ex-bourbon matured examples. There was a huge range of these SFTC bottlings available from the well-stocked distillery shop when I visited, in both Edradour and Ballechin guises, as well as some cask strength 700ml larger batch bottlings of both, some of which were distillery exclusive - I still remember the Madeira cask-matured Ballechin was exceptional, although I ended up going home with a delicious Chardonnay cask-matured SFTC Edradour instead. That distillery shop is very reasonably priced, which is certainly not always the case, and I highly recommend stopping in for a look-see if you're driving through Pitlochry on your way north to Speyside or the Highlands. In fact I highly recommend touring the distillery as well, I think it's important to see these smaller-scale, hands-on and traditional distilleries - Springbank, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman and Benromach also come to mind here - since they offer a different perspective from the larger and more commercial operations that sometimes get more attention from tourists.

This particular Ballechin is quite exciting, since this heavily-peated SFTC bottling has been fully-matured in a single first-fill Oloroso sherry cask. It'll be interesting to compare this against Benromach's Peat Smoke Sherry Cask cask strength bottling, another recent heavily-peated mainland single malt that was fully-matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks. I'm a huge fan of the Benromach, and on paper the two are similar in style - hence my excitement - and are also similarly priced at around $150 AUD, although the Ballechin is a few years older and is a 500ml bottling taken from a single cask, while the Benromach is a full-sized bottle from a larger batch. Personally I don't mind a 500ml bottle if it helps to keep the pricing down and the availability up, which it has in this case, but it's impossible to avoid comparing them against full-sized equivalents when it comes to value. 500ml bottles are a more common thing in Australian whisky though, so I can see that being a harder sell in other markets. This single cask Ballechin was distilled in February 2007, and was bottled at 11-years of age in September 2018 at a cask strength of 61% ABV, with an out-turn of 955 x 500ml bottles, which makes that single cask a 500-litre sherry butt. Like 99% of Edradour's single malts (the entry-level 10-year old at 40% is the only exception) it's non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. The sample for this review came from a swap with a fellow-whisky geek, so cheers Steve! Time to get to it.

Ballechin SFTC Oloroso Sherry Cask Matured, 11-year old. 61%. Pitlochry, Scotland.
Distilled Feb 2007, fully-matured in single first-fill Oloroso sherry cask #18, bottled September 2018. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 955 x 500ml bottles.

Colour: Dark bronze.

Nose: Rich, leathery & fruity. Stewed stone fruit - apricot, plum & a little peach with some raisins thrown in. Dates and dusty soft old leather, and some old-style tinned boiled sweets, cherry liqueur and baking spices. Some candied orange slices & cigar boxes with more time.

Texture: Medium weight, rich & spicy, not particularly peaty though. A little heat, but hides its ABV well.

Taste: More dates and old leather, candied orange and baking spices. A little cherry liqueur again. Dry chilli flakes and a touch of bitter dark chocolate and spicy oak.

Finish: Medium length. Earthy & spicy to start with, some more bitter dark chocolate and spent coffee grounds, maybe a little rubber (not in a bad way). Date syrup, more chilli flakes and old leather, with orange peel and those stewed stone fruits in the background.

Score: 3.5 out of 5.

Notes: A big, rich, powerful dram with plenty of flavour, but the sherry cask has certainly dominated. I expected more peat & smoke to show through, but it's instead been reduced to a soft earthy note - surprising considering how assertive the peaty Ballechin spirit usually is. Maybe if it had been bottled a little earlier more of that peat & smoke would've survived? But the distillery will have bottled at this age for a reason. I do like a big dirty sherry bomb, and this Ballechin certainly delivers on that regard. In terms of dirty funky-ness, I did expect more of that since Edradour's spirit is a little weighty & funky by default - but I'd rank this one behind the Benromach Peat Smoke Sherry Cask in that regard, and further behind the excellent Longrow 14-year old Sherry Cask Matured from 2018.

Since I mentioned it above, between this single cask Ballechin and that sherry cask-matured cask strength Benromach, I'd have to go for the Benromach. It's dirtier and funkier, with more peat & smoke showing through, despite the lower peating level, and with more rancio sherry character as well. But that's just down to personal preference really, if you're of fan of this style of sherry bomb you'll certainly enjoy this Ballechin, as I did. Now I just need to get my hands on a bottle of that Madeira cask Ballechin from the distillery shop. Don't like my chances there!

Cheers!