You know the story: Tun 1401 was a hugely successful series for The Balvenie, so they moved to a bigger marrying tun 1509 in 2014. Each batch is now four times bigger than the batches of 1401.
See my review of Tun 1509 Batch #1.
This second batch consists of 32 casks (23 American oak hogsheads and barrels + 7 European oak sherry butts + 2 sherry hogsheads) selected by David Stewart. It was launched at the end of the summer. The bottle comes with a geeky list of cask numbers and aromatic profiles. No mentions of the age though.
Balvenie ‘Tun 1509’ (50,3%, OB 2015, batch 2, 8500 btl.)
Balvenie ‘Tun 1509’ (50,3%, OB 2015, batch 2, 8500 btl.)Nose: a gentle, bourbon heavy nose. The European oak casks mostly seem to have left a spicy stamp. Nutmeg and ginger. Lots of citrusy notes, orange zest and lemon. Greengages. Soft touches of blush powder and lipstick. Hints of toasted oak. In line with batch #1, but maybe slightly less fruity.
Mouth: sweet and spicy. Lots of white pepper, aniseed and ginger. This time slightly more fruits (berries, oranges, apricots), cake and honeyed notes.
Finish: long, with some woody notes, cinnamon and mint.
From the taste it seems clear that Balvenie is using less aged casks than they did for Tun 1401. I’m missing a bit of sherry, and simply the higher quality components of Tun 1401. Around € 350.
Score: 90/100