Review by: dustbunna
This is the first bottle of Bruichladdich I’ve owned. The tin contains lots of nerding-out information in silver text on grey background– practically unreadable unless you tilt it towards a light source. Once you do manage to get the angle right, though, It lists all the farms that contributed barley to this distillation run (the number of which has been increasing steadily since the 2007 run as far as I know): Coull, Rockside, Island, Mulindry, Starchmill, and Cruach. It also states that it was matured in 75% 1st-fill ex-bourbon casks and 25% 2nd- and 3rd-fill ‘sweet white wine’ casks.
The back of the bottle rounds out the info from the tin, stating ‘6 aged years in oak casks, distilled 2011, bottled in 2018’. Curiously, the stamped bottle date is 2019/08/26, suggesting this was taken out of the casks and aged in glass or some other inert vessel for another year.
Distillery: Bruichladdich.
Bottler: Distillery bottling.
Region: Islay.
ABV: 50%.
Age: 6 years. Distilled in 2011. Bottled in 2019.
Cask type: 75% 1st-fill ex-bourbon, 25% 2nd- and 3rd-fill white wine casks.
Price: $70 USD.
Natural Color. Non-chill-filtered.
Bottle open across approx. 2 months, notes taken leisurely across that period. Bold notes taken beneath the shoulder, regular-formatted notes taken further into the bottle past the halfway point, italicized notes taken towards the heel.
Nose: lemon and cereal at first, water unlocks peach and mango, the lemon turns sweeter and more candy-like, a bit of grass and farmy funk begins to emerge in the background.
Palate: medium-thin body ~ malt-forward at first, peach and lemon candy, a tad hot, some dusty hay emerges to round out the sweeter notes.
Finish: medium length ~ some more heat gives way to similar but distant malt/fruit notes, fresh mint, sweetening a bit on the tail.
Conclusion: Sweetly simple and quaffable– an ideal dram for summertime. I find the best nose on this comes with time and around 10 drops of water, but the trade-off is that the palate then falls apart. It shows its youth in places, but still really great classic-Scotch flavors. No idea, though, what the white wine (Sauternes?) casks were contributing, in this case.
Final Score: 80.
Scoring Legend:
- 95-100: As good as it gets. Jaw-dropping, eye-widening, unforgettable whisky.
- 90-94: Sublime, a personal favorite in its category.
- 85-89: Excellent, a standout dram.
- 80-84: Quite good. Quality stuff.
- 75-79: Decent whisky worth tasting.
- 70-74: Meh. It’s definitely drinkable, but it can do better.
- 60-69: Not so good. I might not turn down a glass if I needed a drink.
- 50-59: Save it for mixing.
- 0-49: Blech.
Malt Runners 