Balvenie 12 Year Old "THE 1931 COLLECTION - Home Malted" Limited Edition Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky

The Balvenie remains one of the very few Scotch distilleries still practicing traditional floor malting, and this limited 12-year-old release takes that increasingly rare craft to its logical extreme. While home-malted barley contributes to the wider Balvenie range, this bottling was produced entirely from barley malted by the distillery, sourced from the Mains of Balvenie and partner farms. The process is famously labor intensive, with the germinating barley turned by hand as many as four times a day, seven days a week. Malt Master Kelsey McKechnie matured the whisky in American oak before finishing it in a European oak ex-sherry butt from Jerez, bottling at a generous 47.5% ABV. The result is classic Balvenie with an unusually direct connection to the distillery's oldest traditions: honey, warm biscuit and creamy toffee lead into barley sugar, ginger, raisin and beautifully integrated sherry spice. Created as part of the 1931 Collection in collaboration with contemporary artist Daniel Arsham, it's an unusually compelling combination of serious old-school whisky production and modern presentation.