1/Pour The Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask and the nose opens on vanilla, toffee and banana, banoffee really. Give it a minute and it settles into an egg custard, with nutmeg and baking spice, plus a sweet coconut note from the rum casks.
2/The palate arrives soft and silky: sweet vanilla and toffee first, then the rum casks bring tropical fruit, pineapple, papaya and mango. It's a dram that doesn't taste much like its neighbours, and that's rather the point of it.
3/Ask the drinkers of the bottles nearest it what this one's worth to them, each starting from what they pay for their own, and the answers run from $69 to $123. At $161 it sits above all of them: it's priced for its fans.
4/This week it's $161, about where it usually sells, which is roughly $6.78 a pour at home across the two dozen in the bottle. Love banoffee and that silky tropical fruit? Yes. Want a dram that stands apart from its neighbours? Also yes.
None recorded.
None recorded.
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