About the alcohol note in Bunnahabhain

[FS]

Ok, let me compare Bunnahabhain 12 that I bought recently to Deanston 12 (which I bought earlier this year) they are both matured for 12 years, un-chillfiltered and with natural color. But the main difference between those two is the alcohol note, or the 'heat'.

Deanston is alot smoother, I've got a friend that is on same opinion.. Horst Luening on same opinion also that Bunna 12 is too harsh.

Could that relate to the distillation process or what is the "problem? I'm a fan of un-chilled whiskes with natural color and want to go for Bunna 18 next time, it's given 88 points average @ whiskybase. But not many are talking about 'heat' in Bunna 18, so all answers and trivias would be alot appreciated.
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Moonshiner on a journey

[BigShing]

Could be, could be the flavour profile, could be your own psychological or physiological make up, that's the difficult thing with whisky: Everyone's approaching it differently. For me I tend to find Irish Whiskey much more delicate in flavour and so I feel the "burn" more with that than, say a typical scotch. I think I would say that for me personally the richer, more sherried, whiskies drown out the alcohol more, so a whisky like Bunna that is rich and chocolatey tastes very smooth. I've never tried the 18yr so I can't say one way or the other if that's any mellower, but it's got a good chance I guess.

Mind you, I drink Cask Strength whiskey neat, so I might not be the best person to give advice on how mellow certain drinks are! I bought a litre bottle of Glenfarclas 105 fully expecting it to last me a good while given that, at 60%, I'd probably be watering it down a fair bit, but I like it well enough neat so I've not added a drop to it!

[Alexppp]

[BigShing]

Well this is the thing, I've never found adding water makes any kind of appreciable difference to my whiskey, I don't know if that's because my sense of taste is weak or I just haven't refined my palate enough, or if something else is in play or what, but other than one or two whiskies (one of which is a cask strength dram: Uigeadail) whenever I've added water I don't find much difference at all. In terms of cask strength whiskies in particular I find that adding water just lessens the intensity of the flavours, so I tend to drink them neat. I do always experiment with water on my first glass though to check if it will do anything for me.

I still consider myself to be a bit of a whisky newb though, only really been drinking it seriously for 4 or 5 years now, so maybe I just need time, but I do emvy these whisky reviewers on YouTube (like Daniel Whittington) who can add a drop or two of water and remark on how it has completely transformed the dram into something else. That just never happens for me!

[TheWM]

Water makes a massive difference but varies on drams quite condsiderably, original abv, type of water, how long bottle has been opened etc...

I’ve always noticed a difference, but then again I drink like 3 litres of water a day and I first started noticing it when I was having a dram and then swigging a small sip of water immediately after I noticed the finish subsiding on a dram. Suddenly all the flavours were re-energised and lots of flavours came through.

Perhaps try that prior to just adding water into the dram; that way it’s kind of like a best of both worlds.

[ralfy legend]

I’ve always added water to every whisky to see if there is a difference and in the main the difference can be great, it’s whatever floats your boat,

[BigShing]

[Fightingirish]

[arqueturus]

I recently bought my first Bunna 12 (I'm working back through some core expressions at the minute that I missed when I started out).

I've got to say, I don't get the alcohol 'heat' that you mention, I find it of a similar strength to the Deanston 12 in that respect, however the Bunna is much more complex that Deanston for me, it's chewier, darker in tone and would probably feel the benefit of a touch of water to open it up (not yet done so). I'd say it's pretty much on a par with Deanston but very very different which is especially interesting as there's almost no peat in the Bunna at all.

I think they make excellent stable mates ona whisky shelf of two contrasting styles of Whisky without eother having loads of Sherry or Peat chucked in there to make them different.

[FS]

[Fightingirish]

Wow.....did you even watch the whole review ?

Man, you sure got that wrong. Horst loved it. In his words, he even mentions that the Bunna 12 was everything he’d been looking for in a Whisky.

Not once in the review did he call it harsh.
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If Jack Bauer was gay, his name would be Chuck Norris

[Jez Hellewell]

I first added water to my whisky this year, Ileach Cask Strength, and the difference was unbelievable. Made it so much more approachable & dialled down the burn. Standard strength, I still don’t bother.