Review – The Balvenie, RumCask, 17 Years Old, 43%

You know the saying, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That will inevitably be the case for this particular release from The Balvenie. Only 1,920 bottles of the 17-year-old RumCask were released in the United Kingdom. And while I do not have precise data, even fewer made it to the United States, making this a genuinely passionate embrace that is here today but gone tomorrow. As the bottle’s tide recedes, so will her tender love be a vanishing joy remembered only in dreams.

As one of only a few in a limited-edition series, The Balvenie RumCask is to be revered as the most delicate among her sisters.

The color of her skin is light and golden—luminous and lovely in the gentle sunlight—betraying the tropical essence of her meticulous finishing among the higher-class dwellings of Jamaica. When she walks into the room, her perfume lingers luxuriously and seductively, drawing you close with the scent of a harmonizing sweetness, demanding your attention as a flower makes promises to the bee.

The seduction ends, and the love affair begins. Her kiss, a palate of spice and freshly cut fruit, is delivered so carefully and so thoroughly. The finish rekindles the enticement of her embrace. There, she gently whispers the same lovely invitation that began the enchantment. The lingering essence is soft, smooth, irresistible, and easily repeatable.

And so, as the days and weeks pass with this Speyside beauty, the hour comes for that one final kiss. The dram empties, and you so painfully learn to affirm the joy and sorrow of a love known and lost.

But wiping the tears from your eyes, you gather your wits and remember, “This beauty has sisters.”