Balvenie – 2003 14 Year Old Peat Week (70cl, 48.3%)

Balvenie – 2003 14 Year Old Peat Week is a whisky from Balvenie (Speyside). Aged 14 years, bottled at 48.3% ABV, 70cl. Built by the Grant family in Dufftown, and situated next door to sister distillery Glenfiddich, Balvenie is at the heart of Grant’s range of blends. Despite their proximity and shared water source, the style of spirit produced by the pair are quite different, with Balvenie producing a sweeter, more honeyed and very lightly peated new make spirit. It wasn’t until 1990, when Kininvie distillery was able to shoulder some of the responsibility for blending stock production, that Balvenie was really able to push forward as a single malt. The distillery quickly distinguished itself through use of innovative maturation processes, and was a pioneer of cask “finishing” with the introduction of it’s DoubleWood expression in 1993. Balvenie is also one of the few remaining distilleries still using on site maltings, although today this only meets a small percentage of its requirements. Made exclusively with barley peated to 30ppm (phenol parts per million) using Highland peat and distilled during week 34 of 52 of 2003.