Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting Blended Malt 17yo
Cadenhead’s Club Exclusive | 49.4% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
So good, that maybe it should be pushed to a 9
Leave the char alone.
Apologies for anyone reading this expecting one of my Official vs Indy reviews. This is an official indy. Kind of.
When you are young you are encouraged to join clubs and undertake activities. There are a number of reasons for that; from building social interactions to helping build personality and identity outside of school structures. You aren’t going to know what you enjoy - or don’t enjoy - until you try an activity. For me in my youth, that group activity focus was around the Scouting movement. From age six right through to around twenty I was involved in all levels of Scouting, right through to being a leader.
Moving onto a more mature (in number if not attitude) stage of my life and the type of club I’m interested in has changed slightly. There are obviously different types of clubs in the whisky realm, the first being of the community kind where likeminded people come together to enjoy a dram and do tastings together.
The second is the concept of a club run by a particular distiller or independent bottler. Unless your funds are unlimited there is definitely a limit to how many of these you can join, but I’m currently a member of a couple.
There are virtual tasting clubs and subscription samples, both of which I have tried in the past and found to be really lacking, usually because of how basic the samples are, generally low-end core ranges with nothing to stand out or justify the price attached to basic 25ml samples.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society gives you access to their bars. Others, like the Torabhaig Peat Elite give you a couple of bottles every year and early access to product, and so work out, probably, cost neutral if you were going to buy from them anyway.
One of, if not the best I have experienced is the Cadenheads Club. The fee is a one-off for lifetime membership and as part of that you get two warehouse tastings every year, for life! It may not be worthwhile to someone who isn’t able to easily travel to Campbeltown or London to take advantage of the tastings, but in reality you only really have to go twice in your life to make the maths stand up. You do also get the ability to buy the special club bottlings and I have to say that the peated Dalmore made available recently, Official vs Indy: Dalmore — Dramface, was a lovely bottle.
And let’s not forget the Aqvavitae Guardians which is probably the ‘club’ that most readers will feel most attached to.
Review
Cadenhead’s 17yo BM.1.B, Warehouse Tasting Blended Malt Whisky, Bourbon barrel, released for the Campbeltown Malts Festival 2026, 49.4% ABV
£72 paid, long sold out
I’m going to start with an acknowledgement that there are two massive flaws to the usefulness of this review: (a) you were never going to get your hands on a bottle unless you physically get to Campbeltown and attend a warehouse tasting (or know someone who has); and (b) the cask is now sold out (I know because I asked a week or so ago). But leaving those aside, this is Dramface, and this is a great dram.
It was at the Cadenheads warehouse tasting in August this year that I came across this bottle. It was a damp Friday afternoon - which really doesn’t matter as, once you are into the warehouse at Cadenheads, it’s a fairly dark, musty affair anyway. Only five others were on the tasting, with a fairly normal mixture, some Americans, some Germans, some English, one of whom, it transpired, I had a mutual acquaintance with – which isn’t unusual in this community.
Like most of the writers at Dramface I am not giving views on drams based on a single tasting. Often my scoring doesn’t change from my first impression, I think I am okay at deciding whether I like or dislike things quickly, but especially where I grade high or low I definitely begin to second guess my initial view. Was it really that good? Was it really that non-descript?
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
So good, that maybe it should be pushed to a 9
Nose
It is a gentle nose, there is nothing rushing at you from it all but it is inviting you in to try and unlock what is in there.
It’s a fresh clean nose with lemon, apple, vanilla, peach and banana, burnt orange along with some caramel and white chocolate milkybar. There’s also a bit of strawberry, possibly mango as well. Doesn’t smell like whisky in the traditional sense.
Palate
This mouthfeel is amazing; it’s a smooth, thick, oily texture yet it seems creamy in nature. So pleasant. The taste is fresh clean apple, pineapple, honey and vanilla cream.
There is zero dryness with it, the thick oiliness sits in your mouth really accentuating the experience. There is a very mild alcohol burn towards the finish but then goes back to a burst of clean fruitiness. It is extensively, but gently warming the gums for a long period at the back end.
I know there is meant to be peat in here from the Kilkerran but I really struggled to pick any up at all. That’s not a surprise to me, I personally struggle to get any peat in Springbank either – I can in some Kilkerran but perhaps not when diluted by non-peated Hazelburn.
It probably tastes around the 49% mark but wears that level perfectly, you don’t feel the alcohol but you also aren’t wanting it higher strength – perfectly balanced on the ABV.
The Dregs
This was a great dram and without question the best blended malt whisky I have ever tried. It was glorious; bright and fresh, well rounded and tasted older than many double decade examples I have tried – of course the bulk of the liquid could be much older; or it could just be another great example of J&A Mitchell product.
My appreciation for the Hazelburn “breakfast whisky” has grown exponentially this year from something that sat beside the Springbank on the shelf to a destination of its own. The triple distillation definitely adds a light smooth characteristic that makes for easy sipping and I’m keen to see what other Hazelburns beyond the 10 year old I can try.
Of course, Hazelburn and Kilkerran are a blend I have a decent amount of raw material for already, it’s just sitting there. The main stumbling point though is a lack of knowledge on exactly what Hazelburn release and Kilkerran variant have been used, particularly when we are talking about a 17 year-old blend – because I don’t have old Hazelburn.
Still, I’ve given it a go using Hazelburn 10 and Kilkerran Bourbon Barrel. I went easy on the Kilkerran and left it for a while, the result was definitely acceptable but not evocative of the actual bottle being reviewed here.
This is also the first bottle I have ever had that is truly straight from cask with absolutely no filtering whatsoever, the amount of char flakes in the bottle is incredible. When enjoying the dram from an agitated bottle that does of course mean that a lot of the char ends up in the glass - and consequently your mouth - which certainly adds to the novelty of the experience and also brings in an entirely new dimension to the mouthfeel.
There are various views online about whether you should filter the char out yourself, with some espousing the view that the content could turn bitter with it, particularly as you get towards the bottom of the bottle. I’m personally not planning to filter anything from it, and if anything I am interested to see whether there does seem to be a change over time, and if we get a truly bitter last dram.
I have heard of a “Raw Cask” bottling produced by Blackadder bottlers but I have never tried one and I believe the char may not arrive in as authentic a manner as you would hope. But having physically seen this bottle brought from the cask by the valinch and go into the measuring cylinder and then the bottle, I can attest that the char in this came 100% from that cask - with no footering (that’s Scots for messing).
I did reach out to Cadenheads to see if any additional detail on the make-up of the blend is available – but I couldn’t really get much more than the fact it was Hazelburn with a very small amount of Kilkerran.
There is undoubtedly an element of situationship in this review, but I wasn’t bothered about the other five drams on the same tasting. I am resisting seeing this entirely unfiltered experience as a new rabbit hole to fall down.
Even at this stage of the review I cannot make my mind up about pushing this to a 9/10. It’s that good.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. CC
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