The bottle from which I poured my sample.
The Balvenie Single Barrel 15 used to be entirely a single bourbon cask series and as such was rather beloved of whisky geeks (give us the opportunity to explore the vagaries of cask variation and we will run with it). I have not tasted as many of the bourbon cask releases as some but all of the ones I’ve tasted ranged from good to very, very good. They were also easily available and quite reasonably priced: in Minnesota it was not difficult to find them for less than $60. As such, I gnashed my teeth with the rest when word came down that the series was going to be scrapped in favour of a new 12 yo single barrel series. But just as I was considering stocking up a rumour also emerged that the 15 yo single barrel was not in fact going away. I wish I hadn’t listened to this rumour because first the prices of existing stock of the 15 yo bourbon casks went up and then the series did indeed get discontinued. Or rather it got reconfigured as a single sherry cask series—of course at a fairly higher price.
