Overview

In October 2023, I traveled back over to Islay for a long-overdue visit. It was my third time on the iconic island, and it had somehow already been two years since I'd last been there. Stepping off the ferry in Port Askaig on a brisk Monday morning, it felt really great to be back.

Bunnahabhain remains my favourite distillery to visit on Islay due to its epic location, as well as for their atmospheric, borderline mental warehouse tastings (especially when David Brodie is at the helm). My other overall favourite distillery on Islay is Bruichladdich. There's hardly a better way to spend one's time on Islay than having a look around a Victorian era distillery, followed by some generous pours of various Octomores valinched straight from the cask in a dark, chilly Bruichladdich dunnage warehouse.

In between distillery visits, I had a wee bit more downtime than usual to explore the island. These explorations led me across a few tantalising single cask bottlings that ended up being the inspiration for this Bruichladdich vertical whisky tasting:

A 19 year old first-fill ex-bourbon Bruichladdich private cask of significant providence caught my eye at the Port Charlotte Hotel
An ornate-looking 16 year old 1986 vintage Bruichladdich “valinch” with obvious oloroso influence, tucked away on the shelves of a fledgling whisky shop near Bridgend
A delicious distillery exclusive hand-fill “valinch” of refill ex-sauternes Port Charlotte

With half a lineup assembled, I kept my eyes and ears open for a few more Bruichladdich expressions from other corners of their particular ecosystem. A chance meeting and chat with Jamie Dawson yielded a highly limited, independently bottled Lochindaal from his newly launched company, Blind Summit. A few weeks later, I won a private cask bottling of mid-teens Bruichladdich at a charity auction. I have yet to try it, but it's highly regarded by those who've had a dram of it over at The Palmerston in Edinburgh.

At this point, the lineup for the tasting was starting to look pretty good!

However, I knew I needed an Octomore. How can you have a Bruichladdich tasting without one of those ridiculous, mega-peated beasties looming over the lineup? I turned to the whisky auction sites. Eventually, a crazy-looking 4x distilled Octomore from a few years back popped up. Clocking in at a whopping 70% ABV, it's not quite the highest ABV dram I've featured in my tastings, but it has to be one of the most unusual.

Unlike the 4x distilled Bruichladdich new make spirit James May procured to power that race car, the 4x distilled expression on this tasting has been aged for at least 10 years, and it has been branded as an experimental Octomore with the exceptionally nerdy moniker, “X4+10 Concept 0.2”.

I helped myself to a wee 10ml measure of this whisky the day before the tasting. Since it's only a 500ml bottle, I could only take the smallest of tastes to ensure there'd be enough left for the event. For me, the extra rounds of distillation have almost completely removed the taste of peat from this otherwise 162ppm monster of a dram. The texture of the spirit is sublime. Slick and coating. It's a very hot dram, of course, but it's not immediately lethal. There's an earth quality on the palate if you look for it, but my palate was mostly dominated by artificial pink/red/orange/yellow fruits and enigmatic feinty qualities. It's an extremely different expression of Octomore from what we might expect. I'd also say that it's unlike any whisky I've tasted to date. I'm very much looking forward to hearing how the crowd rates it.

Founded in 1881, Bruichladdich Distillery has had a tumultuous history which has been well-documented elsewhere (e.g. The Amber Light, Scotch: A Golden Dream). I'm certainly glad they survived all the tumult! We'll be able to reap the rewards during this tasting.

The Lineup

Bruichladdich 16yr 2006 58.4% (private cask)

Single cask (#981)
Ex-bourbon hogshead (likely 1st-fill)
Local Edinburgh whisky geek Angus' private cask

I bid for and won this bottle at a charity auction in late 2023. The owner of this private cask, Angus, was in attendance. He's a lovely, generous guy, and he knows his whisky. On paper, this kind of flavour profile (coastal + ex-bourbon) is my favourite style of Scottish single malt whisky. I think we're all in for a treat.

Bruichladdich 19yr 2003 53.9% (private cask)

Single cask (#1337)
Ex-bourbon barrel (likely 1st-fill)
Distilled in 2003
Bottled for the Port Charlotte Hotel on Islay

According to staff at The Port Charlotte Hotel, this bottling is from a cask that former Master Distiller at Bruichladdich, Jim McEwan, selected for one of his daughters. She held on to the cask for many years but, when she was looking to buy a house, she decided to sell the cask. The individual who purchased the cask is friends with the owners of the Port Charlotte Hotel, and they all decided to split the cask between them. As of October 2023, this bottling was still available for purchase at the Port Charlotte Hotel, but at this point it might be gone. If you pass by that way, you should enquire!

Lochindaal 13yr 2009 50% by Blind Summit

Single cask
Ex-bourbon barrel (1st-fill)
Distilled in 2009
From local independent bottler Blind Summit as part of their inaugural outturn
1 of 36 bottles

Lochindaal is a peated (50ppm) style of spirit that was produced at Bruichladdich Distillery between 2007 and 2009. The name Lochindaal comes from Loch Indaal, which is the sea loch that separates Bruichladdich and Bowmore. Some folk on the internet claim that only 250 casks of Lochindaal spirit were ever laid down, but I haven't been able to verify that. This style of distillate sits between Port Charlotte and Octomore in terms of peat levels (ppm). I've tried some very engaging but dirty Lochindaal expressions in the past. Comparatively, this expression from Blind Summit is very clean and fresh. Lovely stuff.

Octomore 10yr 162ppm 70% “X4+10 Concept 0.2”

Quadruple distillation
Vatting of ex-bourbon, ex-sherry, and ex-sweet wine casks
Distilled sometime in 2008-2009, same era as the Octomore 6.x series
1 of 3,000 bottles

Distilled sometime in 2008-2009, this experimental Octomore was released during the same era as the Octomore 6.x series. Allegedly, it was produced from a different batch of barley than the Octmore 6.x series, but I haven't been able to verify that. It is quadruple-distilled, which means the wash/spirit was run through the stills at Bruichladdich four times instead of twice. When this stuff finally came off the stills, I think it would have been around 88-92% ABV (for reference, the maximum permitted distillate strength in Scotland is 94.8%). To the best of my knowledge, at a mere, diluted 70% ABV, this is the highest ABV whisky that Bruichladdich has ever released.

Bruichladdich 16yr 1986 53.5% “Valinch”

Single cask
Ex-oloroso sherry (cask #700)
Distilled in 1986, bottled on May 23rd, 2002
Bottle #814 (of 1200 bottles)

Bruichladdich Distillery was owned by Invergordon Distillers, Ltd. at the time this cask was filled in 1986, during some of the darkest years in Scottish whisky history. By the time it was bottled in 2002, the rebirth of Bruichladdich was well under way with Jim McEwan at the helm. In fact, Jim's handwritten signature is dutifully inscribed on the back of this bottle. This was a distillery-exclusive “Valinch”, discharged from a large oloroso sherry cask. There are 1200 bottles at 50cl, so this whisky may have come from a 600L puncheon or perhaps it was diluted down to 53.5% to stretch the release. Maybe neither, maybe both? The exact details have been lost to time. That's the fun of these older whiskies, though – they're time capsules.

Port Charlotte 12yr 2010 53.2% “Valinch”

Single cask (#4045)
2nd-fill ex-sauternes
Distillery exclusive hand-fill (from autumn 2023)
Distilled on Nov 10th, 2010
Bottle #284 (of 414 bottles)

I picked this up myself from Bruichladdich Distillery in October 2023. There weren't many left at the time of my visit, so this expression has almost certainly sold out by now. I enjoy a Port Charlotte now and again, but I don't often reach for it. Heavily peated whisky is something I need to be in the mood for. That said, I really enjoyed this expression when I sampled it at the distillery! The combination of that excellent Port Charlotte character with the gentle but definitely-there sweetness from the refill sauternes cask maturation makes for a wonderful whisky that, for me, evokes the unmistakable moody, maritime spirit of Islay.

Sláinte ✌️