Bunnahabhain Moine Amontillado Finish (Fèis Ìle 2020)

The cancellation of Feis Ile last year had a tarnished silver lining for drinkers as the Islay distilleries moved to sell their festival bottlings online. This one was relatively easy to get hold of and reasonably priced as these things go. It’s one of the best I’ve tried from Bunna recently. As much as I like the distillery overall, not every exotic cask maturation or finish works well with the spirit, especially in its more heavily peated Moine version. Here, the Amontillado sherry cask brings just the right amount of tangy, marmalade and apricot influence to bear on the malt’s dusty cigar smoke, while mouth-coating oils keep the embers smoldering at the back of the throat. There’s no world in which my ability to buy a bottle of this offsets the loss of two years of festival income for Islay, but on my short list of serendipitous pandemic opportunities this merits a grateful acknowledgment.