Origin: Isle of Islay (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 50%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex-bourbon first fill
Chillfiltered: No
Added coloring: No
Owner: Bruichladdich (Rèmy Cointreau)
Average price: € 110.00
Official website: www.bruichladdich.com
Vote: 89/100
Since its rebirth at the beginning of this millennium, Bruichladdich has placed emphasis on raw materials, a forerunner of many other distilleries that now follow the same philosophy.
Attention was paid to the provenance of the barley, specifying in their bottlings when Scottish or from Islay, as well as to its variety and cultivation methods, also introducing projects related to soil regeneration with different cereals (hence the birth of their first rye) and biodynamics.
In 2023, they launched the Exploration Series, three bottlings to showcase as many different approaches to (unpeated) barley, which alongside the 2013 Bere Barley (which revived a variety dating back to ancient times) and the 2014 Islay Barley (as the name suggests, made from traceable barley sourced only from Islay) offered this Organic Barley later the same year.
Organic barley grown by a farm near Inverness, which has been supplying its harvest to the distillery since 2003, sustainably and without the use of pesticides, fertilisers and agrochemicals, aged for ten years in first-fill ex-bourbon casks.
Terroir at the heart of the bottle, therefore, which beyond the actual impact on taste and aromas is still the way to enhance and valorise the diversity of the territory, which is always a good thing.
Tasting notes
The nose has a nice, fresh, creamy pastry of lemon curd, sugar-cooked apples, peach melba, pineapple in syrup, fruit tartlets (kiwi, blueberry, banana), coconut. Subtext of orange yoghurt, with a slight mineral vein, while over time a biscuity malt part emerges, intertwined with meekly minty and floral notes. Elegant and caressing.
On the palate it shows the creaminess you expect after a long sniff, with a whiff of ginger and black pepper that opens the way to astringent and bitter notes, soon shifting towards vegetal and floral connotations that rediscover the fruity components, overshadowing the pastry ones. Some hints of nuts (almonds, walnuts), crunchy cereals, ripe pear, coconut, chestnut honey and a hint of vanilla. The mentholated afflatus returns along the length.
Long, slightly spicy finish of cereal, malt, cooked fruit, honey, floral and balsamic notes, almonds.
Elegant and refined, with the richness of the raw material undeniably emerging both on the nose and on the palate, bringing richness and variety. A whisky of great structure, which with a few more years can only improve.