Welcome back to another installment of WhiskyFun Legends. Continuing our journey through Serge Valentin and Angus MacRaild’s top-rated bottles on WhiskyFun, today we are taking a look at the Balvenie 1968 Vintage Cask #7294.
Make sure that you are all caught up on the series by reading the previous installments here.
The Balvenie 1968 Vintage Cask #7294
Balvenie Distillery is located just north of Dufftown, sharing its Speyside site with Glenfiddich and Kininvie. Since production began at Balvenie in 1893 until the release of its first official bottling in 1973, the distillery catered to blends such as Grant’s Steadfast.
Despite a relatively early foray into single malt bottlings, Balvenie was held back by the requirements for blends as most of its stocks were used as such.
However, in 1990, Kininvie Distillery was opened next door, easing some of the demand for Balvenie. Then, in 2009, Alisa Bay Distillery was opened in the Lowlands. This new distillery was specifically built to produce a ‘Balvenie-like’ style of whisky, freeing up Balvenie to pursue single malt bottlings. Since then, the brand has been unstoppable, helped along the way by unforgettable bottlings such as the Balvenie 1937 50 Year Old and, of course, the Balvenie Vintage Casks.
The Balvenie Vintage Cask series was created to showcase the best single-cask whiskies on offer from the distillery. With vintages ranging from the 1940s to the 1970s, the Vintage Cask bottlings exhibit the best that Balvenie has to offer.
Each bottle features a label with all of the details about the whisky inside, including the exact dates of distillation and bottling, the cask number, and the number of bottles produced.
The whisky that we are looking at today was filled into the cask on 11th June 1968 and bottled on 19th September 2000 from single cask #7294. Only 180 bottles were produced.
Trending Stories
Serge Valentin’s Tasting Notes on the Balvenie 1968 Vintage Cask #7294
Serge sampled the Balvenie 1968 Vintage Cask #7294 in July 2005, and had this to say:
“Colour: dark gold – orange.
Nose: wow, really beautiful, with some light coffee, straw, fudge, leather and tobacco. Lots of vanilla too, dark chocolate, marzipan… Really beautiful, complex and quite nervous yet bold.
Mouth: incredibly creamy, coating… Starts by tasting like a great Riesling or a chenin. Lots of vivacity, in fact. Really fresh, with some fantastic notes of kiwi, fresh pineapple, tangerines.
I love it, for it’s very complex yet immediately enjoyable. Splendid: 92” – Serge Valentin, WhiskyFun.com, July 2005
The Price of the Balvenie 1968 Vintage Cask #7294 At Auction
The Balvenie Vintage Casks are somewhat underrated at auction. Each has a vintage and an exact bottling date, as well as hailing from a single cask. This quality of whisky from Balvenie is extremely rare. With only 180 bottles of this cask whisky available, it is no surprise that they have been quite elusive at auction.
No Balvenie 1968 Vintage Cask #7294s sold at auction in 2023. In 2022 just two of these bottlings sold, for £3,550 and £2,750 respectively.
Buy Balvenie Whisky
We have a fantastic selection of Balvenie whiskies available for purchase on the Mark Littler Shop. One such bottle is this very rare Balvenie 1965 Over Proof bottled by Robert Watson in the 1970s. We also have some of the classics such as the Balvenie 12 Year Old DoubleWood in stock.
Browse the full Balvenie collection here.
Latest News