I’m entertaining the possibility that I have been wrong these many years. That there is a God, there is a heaven. And crucially, I have recently died and gone there. The big news is that God is not an Englishman after all, but a Scot from the north east coast of Islay.
This would explain the perfection within my glass.
I had high expectations for this whisky. Considering the order of magnitude improvement that the 37 year old Lagavulin showed over its (already excellent) 12 year old stablemate, and the equally impressive comparison of the 25 year old Bunnahabhain with her younger sibling, I half expected the 40 year old to be that much better again. I half expected it not be, because that level of improvement seemed impossible.
But as Muhammed Ali said:
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
But enough hyperbole. Not that this whisky could have enough. My first draft of this review simply ran out of superlatives. I had a second glass just to try and find something to criticise or suggest improvement.
My favourite thing about this beautiful drink is breathing out. The vapour in your throat fills your mouth, your nose and you experience the drink’s resurrection- a whole secondary flavour and experience. It’s entirely different to the opening aroma, and different again from the first piquancy, or the aftertaste.
Other Bunnahabhain Reviews >>
- Bunnahabhain – 12 Year Old June 6th, 2013
- Bunnahabhain – 25 Year Old October 30th, 2013
- Bunnahabhain Cruach-Mhòna January 6th, 2014
- Bunnahabhain Toiteach December 28th, 2013
