In July 2015, Jim McEwan, who’d served as Production Manager/Master Distiller at Bruichladdich since it resumed production in 2001, retired after more than 50 years in the industry, and Allan Logan, who’d come up through the ranks since its reopening, took his place. Logan was recently in Edmonton for an industry tasting, which consisted of The Botanist gin, The Classic Laddie, the Black Art 4, the most recent release of the Port Charlotte, and four different bottlings of the Octomore (which are covered in a separate posting).
The Botanist, a passion project for McEwan, was first produced in 2010. Perhaps oddly for a malt whisky distillery located on Islay, the spirit base is ngs made from non-gm wheat from England. The ngs is brought down to about 57% abv and nine conventional botanicals are macerated in it, while 22 foraged botanicals are placed in a vapour basket that holds approximately 30 kg; distillation occurs in a modified Lomond still.
On the nose and on the palate, the Botanist is vibrant, both floral and fragrant. Although neither lavender nor rose petal are used, a soapy, almost Thrills-like character comes through on the nose. The softness of the wheat is evident on the palate, emphasizing the freshness of the spirit, but it’s also surprisingly dense and complex. While it can be showcased in cocktails, it can also be savoured on its own.
According to Logan, The Classic Laddie is the distillery’s flagship whisky, a ‘multi-vintage’ whisky matured in different kinds of oak – mostly ex-bourbon, but with a small percentage of ex-wine casks, primarily from Burgundy.
The Classic Laddie (not currently stocked at the store) is distilled using Scottish barley and is bottled at 50% abv. Despite the fact that only a small percentage of wine casks are used, the wine character seems to mute the expected pear notes from the ex-bourbon barrels. Still, there is some of the expected sweetness there, with some vanilla, toffee, and butterscotch coming through.
On the palate, it’s quite volatile, suggesting the whiskies are quite young; certainly, it has the volatility one associates with young whiskies that retain some of the aromatics that either evaporate or are increasingly masked by the contributions of wood as the whisky ages. As with all of the whiskies we tasted, it doesn’t thin out with the addition of water; indeed, as one would expect from a non–chill-filtered whisky, it actually opens up a bit.
Aged whiskies also have their charms. While they’ve lost the bracing freshness and vibrancy of younger whiskies, where the character of the malt comes through more clearly, they’ve benefited from the time spent in wood, which contributes up to 70% of the flavour of a whisky. A case in point would be the Black Art 4, distilled in 1990 and bottled in 2013.
The Black Art whiskies have always been a bit of mystery, since the distillery will only say that they are matured in oak and premium wine casks. Part of the fun is trying to figure out what those casks might be, knowing you might be well off the mark. My own tasting notes make this clear: I began by noting that ‘there may be some px in this’ before beginning the futile guessing game. It’s dense and almost inscrutable, a veritable act of sorcery.
For those of you who are fans of the Black Art, there is good news: a Black Art 5 will be released later this year. No word as yet, however, on when any might arrive in market.
Both the Classic Laddie and the Black Art are in the unpeated style for which Bruichladdich was traditionally known. But when the distillery reopened, they began to experiment with both heavily and super-heavily peated whiskies, and increasingly it’s for these heavily peated whiskies – the Port Charlottes and Octomores – that the distillery is renowned.
We had the opportunity to try the Port Charlotte Islay Barley, distilled in 2008 from grain sourced from six separate farms and aged in both American and European oak in dunnage warehouses at the site of the old Port Charlotte distillery.
The nose is quite dense and meaty, almost gamey. Underneath that meaty character, one detects some sweetness and some warm, dry smoke, along with a hint of char from the casks. On the palate, a warm, almost honeyed, char character comes to dominate, and a bit of a saltiness also comes through. With water, the whisky becomes surprisingly sweet, with a hint of sherry.
And so ended the first half of the tasting, with the promise of a quartet of Octomores still to come. . . .
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