Both Bunnahabhains ask well over their neighbours

Two are on the shelf, the brand tag around $118: the 12 Year Old and the no-age Stiuireadair. Measured against the ten bottles the model rates nearest each on flavour, both come in over their neighbourhoods, and one of them comfortably. That is a little surprising for a distillery whose whole character is restraint, but the shelf does not reward restraint with a lower price this week.

The 12 is $128, about 27% over the roughly $101 its ten nearest neighbours cost. Its reviews land on exactly the things Bunnahabhain is loved for: sea and salt, a light body, sherry sweetness, an oily texture and just a wisp of smoke. The model reads it as sherry-and-dried-fruit led with a smaller maritime streak, which fits the glass perfectly; this is Islay that whispers rather than shouts, coastal and gently sherried, the smoke dialled almost all the way down. A quarter over its neighbourhood is a real premium, though not a shocking one for a twelve-year-old with this much character. The interesting part is where that premium is not coming from.

Because the model puts essentially none of the 12's price down to the Bunnahabhain name. Strip the badge away and the whisky is still charging a quarter over its peers. So the gap is not the label doing the work, which is the easy assumption with a cult Islay distillery. It is the age, the sherry influence and the texture, the actual stuff of the whisky, that the market is pricing up. You can argue that is a fairer reason to pay more than a name on a box, and you would have a point. It still means the 12 is not a bargain this week; it means its premium is at least honestly earned.

The Stiuireadair is the wider gap by far. At $115 it runs about 74% over the roughly $66 of its neighbourhood, nearly three-quarters more than its kin. This is the no-age-statement bottle, sherry-forward and approachable: nutty and toasted, dried apricot, caramel and a touch of chocolate, light on its feet. The model loads it even harder on sherry and dried fruit than the 12. It is a genuinely nice, easygoing dram, the sort of bottle you open on a weeknight without ceremony. But its neighbourhood is cheaper than the 12's, which is what makes the gap so wide: the bottles the model rates alongside the Stiuireadair are keenly priced, and at $115 it towers over them. Whatever you are paying for here, a good deal of it is the distillery's cachet rather than a cost the liquid forces.

The two bottles together tell a slightly awkward story for a distillery with Bunnahabhain's quiet reputation. The gentler, more interesting bottle, the 12, carries the more defensible premium, earned on age and character. The easier, entry-level Stiuireadair carries the much bigger one, earned on rather less. If you were buying on value alone you would want the opposite: a keen price on the everyday bottle and a premium on the special one. The shelf has it the other way around this week.

What that leaves you with is a brand worth drinking but not, right now, worth buying on autopilot. Bunnahabhain's style is lovely and genuinely distinct from the rest of Islay, so there is a reason people seek it out. The reason is not the price.

By situation, then. If you want the proper Bunnahabhain experience, the coastal, sherried, barely-smoked Islay that made the name, the 12 at $128 is the bottle, and its premium is the more honest of the two even at a quarter over its peers; buy it for the character, not the value. If you want an easy, sherry-sweet pour to keep around and you are relaxed about the tag, the Stiuireadair at $115 will do the job nicely, but know that it is sitting nearly three-quarters over comparable whiskies and you are paying mostly for the badge. And if value is the thing you care about most, this is a week to admire Bunnahabhain's style and look to its cheaper neighbours to scratch the same itch.