The Morning Glory Fizz with Bunnahabhain’s Stiùireadair

With summer firmly in the rearview mirror, we’ve got a fixin’ for some single malt whisky mixing. We’ve written before about how single malt gets overlooked when it comes to whisky cocktails; more often than not the bottle you grab will be something blended, or one of those whiskeys — spelt with an ‘e’ — from the USA or Ireland.

But single malt can be just as versatile as those drams, and — when it’s a drop like this one — it can benefit the drink so that the mix is more than the sum of its parts. 

We think that in this case, that’s partly to do with just how the Bunnahabhain Stiùireadair is produced: there is a distinct briny note to this whisky, and that’s thanks to the time it spends ageing by the coast at the distillery on the Scottish island of Islay. Unlike other Islay distilleries, Bunnahabhain is known for being a distinctly unpeated single malt and it’s this characteristic of the whisky which allows the sense of place — they mature their whisky at the distillery in shoreline warehouses that are continually exposed to the elements — to come through. And it’s this briny note helps the other flavours in the drink to pop.

And it makes  Bunnahabhain Stiùireadair delicious in the breakfast cocktail par excellence: the Morning Glory Fizz. We’ve featured this drink a few times before, but Andrew Ratcliff’s take on the drink switches the absinthe quotient to an aromatic spray on top; it’s a Whisky Fizz, essentially, with an aromatic hit of anise.

Take a look at the recipe below and check out the video with Ratcliff, who is the whisky specialist for Proximo Australia — it’s a banger.