Bruichladdich "Port Charlotte" Heavily-Peated 10 Year Islay Single Malt

BRUICHLADDICH PORT CHARLOTTE 10 YEAR

Bruichladdich Distillery (pronounced brook-laddie, with just a breath of celtic ch- on the finish, if you really want to be authentic), founded in 1881, is a study in the vicissitudes and possibilities inherent to the modern whisky game.  Resurrected from near-decrepitude at the turn of the century by Londoner Mark Reynier and a team including the sublime talents of formerly-Bowmore distiller Jim McEwan, Bruichladdich began producing a beautiful, feminine Scotch that completely eschewed the use of peat smoke.  However, cognizant of the island’s stylistic heritage, at around that time they also began work on their Port Charlotte, an homage to the produce of the historic distillery of the same name, closed in 1929.  This sexy malt flaunts its protypically peaty Ìleach nature, with “heavily peated” and a measure of smoky PPM right there on the bottle.  This is classic Islay whisky in the finest sense: masculine, wistful, maritime, and complex.  I’d say it’s not for the faint of heart, save that I’d have little doubt of its salubrious effects on that sanguine muscle.  Plus, if more folks drink it, there are more chances for me to drink some with them.  This is killer juice indeed, and, on a related note, it is particularly wonderful in a setting similar to that in which it was born: misty and sea-blown.  I found the Pacific Coast at the juncture of Oregon and California to be Goldilocks-perfect.

We can only hope that their acquisition by Remy Cointreau last year (2012) will do nothing to dull the cut of this tremendous house.  To that end, McEwan’s services were retained, in the capacity of Production Director and Head Distiller, which can only be a good thing.

N: Broad and grassy as new-mown lawn; there are banana peel, cured meats, and salted butterscotch, with a stemmy, pithy core of dark berries, purple grape, and sandalwood.  Smell again and find dried lavender, cinnamon bark, and seaspray, hung with a foggy breath of sweet applewood smoke.

P: Greets the foretongue with lime backed by salty baguette, sweet vanilla cream, and raw almonds, followed by a burst of super-clean seawater and old campfire smoke, with a thrilling, savory umami hit like mushroom fennel broth.  It’s sweaty and intimate and long in the very best way, with a persistent echo of blueberry ash, sweet bloody spice, and damp, fresh-turned earth.

A truly exciting whisky from one of my favorite distilleries anywhere.  F*ckin-a!