A Buyer’s Note: Enviable 36 Year Old Speyside Malt
Limited stock available:
1989 The K&L Liquors' 36 Year Old "Enviable" (Balvenie) Batch #2 K&L Exclusive Single Vintage Speyside Blended Malt Scotch Whisky (750ml) (Pre-Arrival) $199.99
When this 1989 Speyside malt came to us, the thing that stood out immediately wasn’t the age or the rarity, but the outrageous quality to price ratio. This is a 36‑year‑old Speyside malt, distilled in 1989, drawn from refill hogsheads, and bottled at a natural strength just under 48% with a microscopic amount of its neighboring distillery add to the mix. There’s no famous distillery name on the label, no finishing regime meant to dress it up, and no attempt to turn it into something it isn’t. Just dang good whisky for an amazing price. That’s not something you see every day.
Why Refill Hogsheads Matter for 36‑Year‑Old Speyside Malt
While for younger whiskies we’re often demanding first or at least second fill barrels, at the age range of this whisky, it’s the older barrels that make it exquisite. Not only do refill hogsheads tend to give this older spirit the space it needs, the refill might have been coopered 60+ years ago. Wood from an begone era of production!
The oak is present, but it’s integrated. The structure has held up remarkably well over three and a half decades. Nothing feels dried out or thinned. The immediate impression is of the most classical style, almost a caricature of our idea of old scotch.
We’re prohibited from naming a distillery on the label, but simply no one can stop me from telling you here that this is 99.999% Balvenie with a drop of Glenfiddich added during filling. The product is often bottled as “Burnside,” but this name is also trademark protected, and we respect our friends at Cadenhead’s who own the name too much to bother stoking that fire. We sold our first batch under the Side Burns name, and, while these stocks are similar, they are from a different distilling date and supplier.
Stock like this usually disappears quietly into blends and is acquired through distillery swaps between the large blenders. Yet sometimes we luck out: their need within the larger apparatus is not guaranteed, then we are the lucky beneficiaries of that poor planning.bEvery once in a while something like this slips through the cracks. Those are the kinds of opportunities I’m always watching for.
We called this whisky Enviable because, frankly, we’re are cheeky. We like to play on the edge of the cliff and if you shuffle the letters around a bit you’ll see what I mean, but our bottler has assured us that this tongue and cheek naming scheme is well within bounds and really the name suits these stocks perfectly. No other store in the U.S. can offer you such incredible stocks from such an amazing distillery at such a reasonable price. We certain this offer insights envy in all our competitors.
At $199.99, it’s not inexpensive, but on paper there’s nothing on the market that comes anywhere close. For a 36‑year‑old malt of this quality, bottled honestly and without embellishment, it’s a price that simply feels unbelievable. This offer exemplifies the entire ethos around which K&L was built. We pursue the very finest for our customers and do whatever it takes to offer them incredible value.
This is the first release under the Enviable name, but the second batch of 1989 Burnside we’ve acquired this year. It sets the stage for a new era of whisky excellence: old whisky, carefully chosen, and shared at stunning prices.