Laphroaig's Younger OBs considered. Cigarette?

Laphroaig is the biggest selling Islay single malt according to Bloomberg (accounting for about 44% of the sales of all the whisky from Islay (!)) and it's not a big mystery why.   It is tremendously smoky and peaty, maritime briney, and yet has beguiling stone fruit flavors and plenty of malty sweetness.  The 10 year old expression is fierce, and yet well balanced, and at around $40 one of the biggest values in the single malt world in the flavor density for the dollar equation.  I encountered it, like a lot of malt whiskey fans, very very early.  In the early 1990s after I had tried Macallan, Glenfiddich, and began tasting the Diageo Classic malts I immediately gravitated towards the compellingly simple and classic label of Laphroaig 10.  You can't begin to explore the world of Scotch Whisky without being either seduced or repelled by Islay - the Hebredian jewel where history, mystery, and peat and sea air come together in a magical array of malt whiskies.  Islay malts all tend to have a maritime influence and most have some peat (even if just by cross contamination) - or a lot of peat.  Laphroaig sets an immediate benchmark and it says it right on the label of the base 10 year old expression:  "The most richly flavored of all spirits".  Older Laphroaigs (the 15, which was the flagship OB until 2009 when it was replaced with the 18) are more estery and have a more elegant and polite peat flavor profile.  The younger ones have a forceful peat that is a polarizing flavor.  Some folks absolutely love it and some folks totally hate it.  The flavors of the peat are less about the smoldering earth, wet hemp, or raging wood fire like you get in other Islay malts.  Instead there's a very special almost spicy aspect to the peat's flavor.   And it was this aspect, I confess, that led me to steer clear of Laphroaigs generally for years.  What the heck is that flavor note?  I tend to describe it as a wet tobacco quality - like a cigarette that the rain put out and which you are now lighting up again.  It's a flavor note that I pretty much only get in young (NAS through 10 year old) Laphroaig.  But that's a whole lot of expressions in their line.

Recently I decided to tour through these expressions to reassess how I feel about the flavors of younger Laphroaig.

If you want to know more about the story of Laphroaig be sure to check out Malt Madness' profile:
http://www.maltmadness.com/whisky/laphroaig.html

A more effusive narrative, richly illustrated with period photography and some of the amazing tales - including the tale of the attempted Laphroaig replica Malt Mill is found here:
http://www.laphroaigcollector.com/history.htm

For photographs of the active distillery you can't do better than to visit Ernst Sheiner's  Gateway to Distilleries page for Laphroaig:
http://www.whisky-distillery.net/www.whisky-distilleries.net/Islay_L-P/Seiten/Laphroaig.html

Disclosure of the origin of the samples tasted:  the bottle of Laphroaig Cask Strength 3rd edition, and samples of Triple Wood 2012 and Cairdeas 2012 were generously provided by  Ryan of JSH&A Public Relations in November of 2012 (over a year ago!).  The bottles of Laphroaig 10, and Cairdeas 2013 are my own property, purchased at Park Avenue Liquors.

Laphroaig 10 (in front) and Cairdeas 2013 Port Finish (behind)

Laphroaig 10 43% abv

Color:  gold

Nose:  Putty, clay, lime, hemp.  Far beneath: distant melon, stone fruits, flowers and honey.

Palate entry is sweetness instantly eclipsed by dark oily peat burn with tobacco and tobacco ash.  Spicy heat and some meaty notes (salami) on the expansion and a long slow fade to ash and dirty malt glow on the finish.  Big rich big dark Islay flavor.  You'll either love it or you'll hate it.

With a few drops of water, there's more putty on the nose although the melon and floral notes (distant to start) seem to disappear.  There is more lemon citrus and sunny sweet on the palate.   Mouth feel is a bit richer too.   I'd say a few drops and 10-15 minutes of integration should be considered mandatory.

****  

An absolute landmark for value in an entry level single malt Scotch whisky.  This is an iconic flavor profile.  That said, I'm not in love with it personally.  The peat comes off as dirtier than I'd like.  I find the unadorned Laphroaig flavor profile not as satisfying as the varieties that gussy it up with some sweetness via some kind of wine finish.  I feel almost guilty saying so.  It's like saying you wish Jimmy Durante had a smaller nose.

Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength 55.3% Batch 3 Jan 2011

Color: Light amber with coppery and golden tints.   Looks like a young bourbon.

Nose: Honeyed quince, apricot, roobios herbal tea, and window putty are the dominant notes.  But the aroma is both big and subtle: Creosote and heather, cardboard and floral meadow.  Fresh unlit Virginia tobacco leaf and river clay.  A harmonious tottering of extreme contradictions of loveliness and ugliness.

Explosive on entry and huge on the palate.   Honeyed and stone fruit preserves sugar sweet melded from the first instant with a fierce radiant lit tobacco smoky-bitter peat with a kiss of library paste.   At mid-palate the expansion brings in stone and red fruits under the dusky thick smoke reek with covers all from first sweet piercing sip through the long aching ashy smoky finish.  At the turn there are sub rosa fruity notes yield to tar and ashes.

Adding a few drops of water adds some hints of stone fruit (nectarine) and whisks of floral perfume to the nose.  These meld to clay and putty to form a classic Laphroaig peaty sweet aroma.

The water thins the palate, gentles the sharp sugars of the opening adds a bit of thickness and honey to the mouth feel, and amps up the already generous spicy heat, but it shelves down the tar and ash in the balance.   More citrus tang and ocean air joins the fierce peat reek and yields a more approachable, more harmonious dram.   Slightly.  Water is recommended but it drinks just fine neat too.  This is a seriously fierce and peaty monster.  A flavor packed dram for the money.   I can see why so many people are wild for this one.

*****

A really delicious example of an Islay Peat Monster.  I've had the opportunity to try other batches (the current one is 5).  They are all good - Batch 5 perhaps best of all.

The bottle and samples shown here were provided by
Ryan of JSH&A Public Relations

Laphroaig Cáirdeas 2012 "Origin: 51.2% abv

From the cut sheet that came with the sample - this useful information about this expression:

Each Càirdeas Origin bottling has been crafted with whisky from the very first Laphroaig Càirdeas barrel, ranging in age from 13 to 21 years and boasting notes of white pepper and purple heather.  This full-bodied whisky has been blended with equal parts of exceptionally unique whisky, intensely matured in small quarter casks for seven years.  Laphroaig Càirdeas produces an extraordinary blend of hazelnut and earthy notes befitting of the 18th milestone.

Color:  Pale gold with amber glints

Nose: Gentle tobacco, earth, sweet grassy heather, meaty animal sweat, and a hint of stone fruit.

Sweet with the sharp pointed grassy malt sweet of a young Islay like Octomore, or Ardbeg 10.  The rich earthy tobacco burn of Laphroiag's characteristic peat attack comes on immediately.   There's juicy sweetness in the mid-palate with tastes of Sauternes, white sultanas, and fruit gums mixing among the ashy tobacco smolder meets anthracite peat reek burn.  It's a simple gastronomic trick, but I'm seduced.

A few drops of water increase both the apparent sweetness and the considerable peat heat.   The mouth feel richens a tad too.   It's almost a wash.

****

almost 5 stars.  A delicious peat monster with some elegance and finesse.

Laphroaig Triple Wood 2012 48%

The cut sheet that came with this expression's sample included these useful details:

Laphroaig® Triple Wood (96 proof) is the result of a distinct triple maturation process in American Oak ex-Bourbon barrels, 19th Century style quarter casks and specially selected European Oak Olorso sherry casks.  The finish reveals the perfect marriage of peat, oak and sherry notes.  Roughly 12,000 bottles have been produced for the U.S. market and will be available at participating retail locations beginning in October 2012.

Color: Light amber

Nose: Virginia tobacco, earthy clay, distant stone fruit, a farm animal's haunch, fresh sawn lumber.

The palate entry and bloom are dominated by lumber with some kiln dried "craft whisky" barrel flavors and tobacco and gentle malty sweet.  With some air and time cherry candy notes play underneath.   The interplay of fruity sweet with hot, darkly bitter peat is lovely.

Titanic ashy finish. 

***

borderline four stars.  This was my least favorite of the group.  The wood management's complexity left me tasting some barrels that didn't do it for me.

Laphroaig Cáirdeas 2013 51.3% abv. Port Wood Finish

Color: An extraordinary light amber and rose wine pink.   Salmon.

Nose: Virginia tobacco again, clay, honey malt, raspberry-cherry compote in a sawn oak box.

The palate is raucous and sweet.   It opens with sweet cereal sugars, berry and citrus tartness, honey and red fruits and then explodes into fiery burning tobacco peat and spirit heat.   The finish brings in grapefuit pith tartness and the fading prickly burn of peat redolent of potter's clay, hemp, salt air, and rock mineral.   It's a classic swimmer (at 51.3% abv it fairly cries out for a drop).   Water adds sweetness to the palate and honeyed richness to the mouth feel.  It also amps up the fruit acids and the dynamics of almost every flavor element.  Water and at least a quarter hour of water integration time are necessary for this whisky to open up and strut its stuff.   It's not elegant.   It's not sophisticated.   Heck, it's not even balanced.   It's a raging peat monster with a lovely fruity sheen added by the port cask portion of the double maturation (the remainder being bourbon barrel). 

****

Rich and big and with some lovely fruits.   I slightly preferred the 2012's more floral presentation, but there's little doubt that the port wine finish's zip and tang and extra sweetness take the Laphroaig flavor signature somewhere interesting.

Conclusions: young Laphroaigs are big aggressively peated flavor bombs.  The quality of the peat has a clear tobacco aspect that is polarizing.   I don't want it all the time - but when I do there is no substitute. What's missing in this review? Laphroaig Quarter Cask.   Introduced in 2004, Quarter Cask - a NAS edition that is younger, aged in more aggressively wood infusing quarter sized casks, is the second largest selling Laphroaig expression, accounting for about 15% of total sales.   I didn't taste it here because I'm not sanguine about the small cask shorter aging period idea.  Maybe I'm making a mistake? If I taste it and find it to be so I'll definitely update this review.

So have I come around to liking the tobacco flavor aspects of the peat in younger Laphroaigs?  Yes I have.  I have come to love it.  Just not all the time...

Note: a similar survey was recently performed by Terry Lozoff at Drink Insider: http://drinkinsider.com/2013/02/laphroaig-triple-wood-cairdeas-10-year-cask-strength/

Ardbeg Supernova 2010 vs Octomore 2.1

Ardbeg Supernova - the extreme model from the maker of serious peat monsters. I miss a lot of Ardbeg special releases, sadly. They are all good and many are excellent. I've been reviewing Octomores and Gal Granov, the incredibly gregarious, intelligent, questing and amazingly active master of the Israeli food and booze blogging scene via Whisky Israel among others, asked me how the Octomores compared with Supernova. When I said I had never tried any of them we got busy setting up a trade and I recently received a sample of the 2010 edition from Gal.

Ardbeg Supernova barely there in the glass; huge on the palate

Ardbeg makes peat monsters and when Bruichladdich concocted Octomore, the most heavily peated whisky in the world, Ardbeg quite reasonably derived a competing version. Ardbeg has released fewer versions and less total volume of this intense fire water than Laddie - and they never quite got the peat phenol levels as obscenely far into the stratosphere as Laddie did (and continues to do) with Octomore. However, as anyone who has marveled at the heavy peat flavors of Lagavulin and Laphroaig (which taste mighty peaty at comparatively tiny phenol levels) the ppm number doesn't tell the whole story. I had to see which peat monster tweaked my peat freak tail the hardest.

Ardbeg SuperNova 2010 60.1%

Color: Pale straw

Nose: light and youthful spring meadow with floral vanilla and a kiss of lemon over a darker foreboding with spirit heat, clay, putty, and some distant petrol and auto garage.

Palate The entry is pointed and sweet with malt sugars, grassy and clean. There are gentle intonations of vigorous juicyfruit and jujubee berries on a thin light mouth feel. And then hits a roaring big expansion of spirit heat with vigorous big and classically maritime Ardbeg peat. The peat blooms into massive intensity, well melded with sweet. It is a huge, visceral, pulsating burn. At the turn to the finish it becomes massively bitter and ashen - like the gray end of a fine cigar. The intense ash fades over an extensive period of time progressing though herbal bitters and eventually into a gentle cherry and malty residual sweet glow on your blasted palate.

A dash of water ups the citrus lemon note in the nose and increases the angularity of the sugars. However the mouthfeel is noticeably richer and the pointy sweetness of entry rendered more honeyed. There more pepper and spice in the huge peat expansion.

Bottom line here, Ardbeg Supernova 2010 is a huge peat monster and a delicious dram with a lot going on flavor-wise.

*****

Read Gal's review of it: 
http://whiskyisrael.co.il/2010/08/16/tasting-ardbeg-supernova-2010-release/

The general consensus in the blogosphere seems to be that Supernova 2010 is more citrus and fruit and less phenol and slam than the 2009 edition.  That sounded a lot like the general consensus about the difference between Octomore 01.1 (phenol and slam) and Octomore 2.1 (more sweet and heather - despite higher phenol levels).

Given the sweetness of Supernova and the legacy of the turn to the light between the 2009 and 2010 expressions I decided to skip the heavy petrol of Octomore 01.1 for the head to head comparison.. It was a toss up, for me, between the razor sharp 4.1 or the slightly more rounded 2.1. It seemed like splitting hairs and I have a fresh full bottle of 02.1 and only a couple of ounces of 4.1 so I queued up a dram of Octomore 02.1 straight away.

Octomore 2.1 62.5% 140ppm 5 yo

Color: pale yellow - a tiny touch darker than the pale pale Supernova

Nose: grassy sweet over industrial putty, clay. But where Ardbeg Supernova features floral and lemon notes, Octomore features a darker nasal palate with grass and grain sugars rather than flowers and more peat (clay) notes in evidence.

Palate: Ardbeg opens with pointed malt sugars and young grassy grain too, but more a tiny bit more heft, a thicker mouthfeel, and a slightly bigger mid palate expansion of ash, and tar. Octomore 2.1 has lemon citrus in the turn to the finish. There are maritime notes, iodine, sea air, kalamata olives. With repeated
sips the peat burn builds, but so does a creamy vanilla quality.  This is classic Octomore: grassy malty heather sweet entry followed by a titanic mid palate expansion of explosive peat and rich maritime flavor elements.  The palate experience divides cleanly into two divergent and opposite halves like the twin nature of Man: light and dark; good and evil.  Sweet angelic honey sugar sunlight and monstrous burning ashy tar laden hellfire.

*****

Dramming them side by side I'm struck by how distinct the flavor profiles are: Ardbeg with more floral, citrus, and black pepper; Octomore with more honeyed malt, meadow, tar and cream.  The Ardbeg tastes so distinctly of Ardbeg and the Octomore is clearly in the peated Bruichladdich house style.  Yet I'm also struck by how similar they are to each other. Sweet and young up front with titanic peat wallops and huge tarry finishes. They are both true to what they are and clear Islay kin. Two different routes to the top of peat monster mountain. So, which is king? Octomore is darker and more convincing peat monster from the perspective of the density of burn. However Ardbeg Supernova is just ever so slightly more delicious from my perspective.  They are both monsters and both superb.  It's an academic question anyway.  Both are limited editions and both are long sold out in most places.  

Kilchoman 2006 Turns 5 And Gives Me "Vertigo"

Kilchoman distillery is famous for being the first new distillery on Islay in 124 years. It's also famous for being a "field to bottle" operation where some batches at least are made with barley grown on the local farm and malted on site - the traditional and time honored way. (Other batches are made from Port Ellen maltings). This produces a product, so it is said, with a richness and complexity hard to achieve any other way. Furthermore the blogosphere has been awash in loving praise for Kilchoman. So, when I just had my first taste of Kilchoman at NYC's fabulous Brandy Library, I was expecting it to be good. I wasn't, however, prepared for the emotional response.

Why did I wait so long? I admit I suffer from a touch of "ageism". Kilchoman is a new distillery and as such they have been selling new make and plenty of whisky from the earliest time it could legally be labelled "Scotch Whisky" (by law 3 years). Even though response had been positive, I had the ageist sense that it was probably being bottled too young, in order to satisfy people's curiosity and to provide needed cash flow. Furthermore, the cost of these young bottlings was high. It seemed easy to skip.  But it's more than that. The Kilchoman project has so many attributes that I hold dear that I was secretly afraid to try it so young, afraid that if I didn't like it I would be disappointed in more than just the whisky.

The 2006 vintage bottling The Brandy Library was pouring tonight is the first of Kilchoman's bottlings to be aged 5 years. In my mind that turns a corner. I already drink and greatly enjoy some Islay whiskies at this age - for example Bruichladdich's astounding Octomore series. I grant It's not entirely a rational viewpoint (particularly in light of my last post's celebration of Balcones Distillery's ability to make amazing whisky younger than 3 years old. But Islay isn't baking in the Gulf heat like Waco is). After this experience with Kilchoman I'll suck it up and try the younger expressions. The 2006 vintage bottling uses Optic barley peated to 50ppm (I'm pretty sure that means it's Port Ellen maltings. The home made floor maltings are apparently peated to levels less than half that: 10-20ppm). It's pretty hard to find in the US. It goes $75-80 in the UK. In the US it would be a bit more - but I haven't seen in here.

Kilchoman 2006 46% 5 years old.

Color: Pale gold

Nose: lemon curd, unctuous warm and earthy peat with putty, clay, baked lemon pie with caramelized merangue. Underneath are some farmyard notes of manure, straw and mud.

The palate entry is creamy with floral meadow, lemon cream, and some candy sparkles. The mouth feel is suprisingly rich and full given the color. Not quite "rich and oily", but definitely trending in that direction. The mid palate expansion has some oyster, lightly tanned hide (like chamois) and some tidal flat seaweed notes, but is dominated by the peat, which waxes full with tar and earthy burn. What's special here, for me, is that the creamy lemon sweet carries into, and indeed through, the peat bringing a harmonious integration that's pretty tasty and pretty special. I have to say, this reminds me a lot of a really nice Port Ellen. Maybe a bit less tar and a little more sweet but the combination of unctuous mouth feel, lemon fruit, chamois, and sweet driving into peat with tar and tang on the finish is all hauntingly reminiscent of the vanished treasure that was the Port Ellen Distillery and each sip fills me with a nameless joy that this flavor signature might not be vanished from the world after all.

A few drops of water and some time ups the cream pretty dramatically. Whipped cream now heaped on the caramelized lemon pie and pitch pots. This creamy sweetness is taking things beyond the Port Ellen resemblance into a unique Kilchoman flavor signature. But the fact remains, this tastes a lot like a Port Ellen to me. I have come to really enjoy Port Ellens - but they are going going almost gone. This Kilchoman 5 year old seems to feel a lot like her. I start having fantasies like the Jimmy Stewart character in Vertigo when he meets a woman who looks just the woman, Madeleine who died earlier in the film. He wants to dress her up and make her into his dead Madeleine. I'm wondering if Kilchoman at 8 years, and 10 years and 12 years will come to resemble Port Ellens even more. But, that thought seems ghoulish - just like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo.

To make another metaphor, Madelyn Peyroux sounds like Billy Holiday to me. It's not cool, however, to make too much of that. She is her own artist and she arrives in the vicinity of the great Holiday by an honest creative process and her art has it's own merit. And so it is with Kilchoman. No one set out to make a Port Ellen replica here. The fact that Kilchoman 2006 tastes so very much like a really nice unsherried young Port Ellen of the first rank to me comes out of common details of production, materials, and environment (or is simply a delusion on my part). Not everyone is going to get lemons and chamois out of this. Maybe no one will. Indeed, I haven't heard anyone else out there saying so. This appears to be, very much, my personal illusion. Maybe I'm having this illusion because I want it to be her - and it smells like Port Ellen and when the light catches her just right...

No matter. This is just brilliant Islay whisky. It is really astoundingly delicious and makes me tremendously happy on a host of levels. It constitutes an imperative for me to investigate this project's whiskies further. I need to find out how big a role this extra maturation plays in the magic going on here.

*****

The Harmonic Resonance of Peat: An Ardbeg Vatting Mystery

I had the sublime pleasure of dramming the other day with one of New York's greatest whisky enthusiasts: Peter Silver, aka The Jazz Dentist, Malt Maniac, & PLOWED dude.  He is one of the most erudite, knowledgeable, experienced, generous, story filled, and whisky geekiest people I've ever met or even imagined.  To say I was in hog heaven at our dram session at "Dram Central Station" (his house) would be an understatement.  Among the wonderful things that went down that night and that blew my mind was an incredible vatting of two fierce drams... but, wait.  I should start the story a little earlier... 1803 to be precise...

Peter Silver at Dram Central Station (in the midst of post move unpacking)

In 1803 English genius polymath Thomas Young performed an interesting experiment on harmonic resonance.  You know, that phenomenon where waves can interact either constructively - via positive feedback - or destructively via negative feedback to yield either an increasing power or a decreasing one; a cancelling out.  You run into this a lot in situations like using a microphone too near a speaker, where positive feedback turns a sound into a howl, or in the corner of a swimming pool where the little waves might slap together and form a spout that soaks you in the eye.  Anyway, Thomas Young proved the wave nature of light using a clever experimental arrangement that looks like this:

(from wiki article on Young's Interference Experiment)

The two slits create a zone of raking interaction angle where the wave fronts alternately reinforce and and cancel each other out - producing a characteristic comb-like pattern.  The wave like nature of water waves was shown and then light was tested and the wave nature of light was empirically proven.  Of course, when most people see the double slit diagram they don't think of this vital and important piece of 1803 science.  They think of a later and perhaps even more important piece of science - the one performed in 1909 by G. Taylor and many times since showing wave particle duality in quantum physics.  In that experiment single particles going through twin slits build up over time to show the same comb shaped diffraction interference pattern as water or light.  This means that each particle goes through both slits  and interferes with itself - its own wave-like nature.  Einstein showed that matter and energy are different manifestations of each other. Wave particle duality shows that matter itself is inherently unlocalized.  Spooky - mysterious - inherently incomprehensible. 

Dr. Silver executes the vatting.

But what does any of this have to do with whisky?  This is where Dr. Peter Silver proceeded to blow my mind for the umpteenth time that night.  He replicated an experiment that a friend had shown him where two powerful expressions of peat, slightly out of phase, largely cancel each other out - just as two waves out of phase annihilate each other.

The two slightly out of phase powerful peat expressions are Arbeg Airgh Nam Beist and Corryvreckan - the two expressions I reviewed head to head earlier this week. (Thanks, Peter, for those samples!)

The story was that Dr. Silver's friend loved old expressions of Ardbeg that were more floral and fragrant and more gently peated than the current NAS monsters.  These old expressions have become virtually unobtainable however.  Being a serious whisky scientist, however he had figured out that vatting together Nam Beist and Corryvreckan at a 1 to 1 ratio (1/2 and 1/2) produced a product that, paradoxically, was dramatically less peated than either of its component whiskies and tasted, to the educated palate, remarkably like those old Ardbegs.

Full disclosure: I wouldn't know an antique Ardbeg if it shot me in the knees (Ardbegs typically bear loaded firearms and blast you with them so I figured this was an appropriate metaphor here).  Nevertheless I figure I could say whether vatting together these two peat monsters could somehow - magically, and in violation of all sense or reason - produce a lightly peated dram.

I tasted this vatting that night and was astounded.  Intelligently I took a sample to put under the intense scrutiny of a Jason Debly style "slow whisky" examination later - i.e. here:

A 50-50 Vatting of Ardbeg 2007 Airgh Nam Beist and Corryvreckan

Color: full gold

Nose: Damp clay, and sea airs yield to floral roses, and blackberry and strawberry fruits. These aromas float over a dark and complex backdrop that has me stretching for metaphor: hemp rope, clams, pitch and distant burning earth. Rich, delicious and heady. Loaded and 100% Ardbeg.

Palate: The entry is initially briefly off dry and loaded with sea salt up front. But this rapidly gives way to polite, elegantly rich malt sweetness with clover honey and white cane sugar elements. There is the fierce filigree of high proof white pepper heat and then a gentle stillness. This is the moment where Ardbeg's monster peat normally arrives with fierce dark tar and burning smoky hot ash. But now, this moment never arrives.

The mid palate grows juicy with lime that makes my saliva squirt and a distant warming earthy peat that brings a subtle tingle rather that a fierce burn. There is dark and dusty ash in the turn to the finish - but no wallop. The dominant flavors are herbal bitters, salt crust and sea weed and iodine. More than anything this mix of tar, lemon-lime acid, herbal bitters, and salt reads as high quality kalamata black olives. Delicious, gentle, warming, and ultimately mystifying. This is a vatting of a floral off-dry mature peat monster and a fierce, sharp sugared full bore peat monster. Yet their combination is not a peat monster at all. It is a gentle, richly complex subtly peated dram. The finish is long and gently subtle with malty berry sweet and a lingering earthy tar glow of peat. It's quite a bit sweeter and less "skinned palate" than the usual Ardbeg finish.

Is this a faithful replica of antique Ardbeg? I cannot say. What I can attest is that the spectacle of the cancellation of peat is a stupefying miracle. I'm dazzled and delighted. As a bonus, the resulting spirit is so delicious I could see deliberately vatting a pair of bottles and drinking this smooth, rich, and complicated concoction on a regular basis.  So what is happening on a molecular level?  How is this incredible phenomenon really taking place?  I have not the slightest idea.  Yet I have tasted it myself and can attest it is real.  I believe it is intimately connected with wave-particle duality and the deepest mysteries of the universe but I cannot say precisely why.  I cannot, indeed, even say extremely roughly why.  Frankly, it's really the whisky doing the talking here, completely.  Let it speak and listen to it and maybe we'll all learn something.


Update 8/17/12: This post has led to some lively debate - both in the comments section and on twitter.  Some folks took me literally with the harmonic resonance and quantum physics arguments.  I assure you these are metaphors.  However, what can possibly account for two powerful peat monsters to mix together to combine into a much less peated dram?

When I referred to Oliver Klimek and Bozkurt Karasu "backing" me I was referring to this conversation:

Thanks, Peter! 

Ardbeg Corryvreckan and Airgh Nam Beist head to head.

Last week I discussed Ardbeg's resurrection at the hands of Glenmorangie's brilliant master distiller Bill Lumsden in my post about Ardbeg Alligator. The emerging Ardbeg house style involves No Age Statement whiskies featuring young spirits of enormous power, sharp sweetness, and fierce young peat. These heady brews are then subjected to interesting barrel management techniques. The resulting expressions are then given a cool Celtic name and back story, a massive price tag, and then hyped to high heaven by an aggressive and effective marketing crew while whisky enthusiasts either grumble or cheer. Yet they invariably cough up and imbibe the stuff with gusto. The origins of this pattern come out of the big gaps in production caused by periods of closure, the recent enormous demand for Ardbeg's products, and the fact that youth is often an advantageous attribute for peat monsters. But it hasn't always been this way for Ardbeg. Enthusiasts should study the amazing pages at The Ardbeg Project - particularly the history page.

But much of the history and the issues contained therein can be summarized in a nutshell by looking at the capstone regular edition Ardbegs over the past decade: Airgh Nam Beist from 2006-2008 and Corryvreckan from 2009 on. Nam Beist was a 1990 vintage release that took the whisky community by storm. Powerful, peaty, yet fragrant and richly flavored - it marked the Ardbeg for greatness. It was also sold around $60-$70/bottle which was a fantastic value. Releasing the distillate from a single year over the course of several years is inherently limited however, and stocks were destined to run out. In 2009 the successor, a No Age Statement powerhouse with a fancy Burgundy wine cask finish barrel management angle with a great Gaelic name and back story angle and new, higher price ($85 official) set the pattern in complete detail. The real discussion, as always, takes place in the nose, on the palate, and in the glass:

Ardbeg Airgh Nam Beist 1990-2007 46%

Ardbeg Airgh Nam Beist (in the shelter of the beast) was made from old (pre-Glenmorangie) 1990 vintage stocks from 2006-2008. Thus it is 18-16 years old depending on which bottling. (these details from http://www.ardbegproject.com/anb.shtml) The following tasting notes are for a 2007 example. If you've ever compared Islay peat malts of different ages, say Laphroaig 10 and 18 or Caol Ila 12 and 18 you'll know that age tones down the peat heat and malt sugars and dials up oak influence, perfume, tannins, and complex spices.

Color: Light Gold

Nose: tight at first, but with a 10-15 minutes of air an intense honeyed and floral (roses and honeysuckle) aroma magically appears. The floral sweetness is the foreground and then apricot citrus with brine, iodine sea air, and the industrial putty and clay aromas of peat play well to the rear. This is an extraordinary nose for an Ardbeg - quite distinct from the currently offered NAS expressions.

Palate: Intense grassy off dry opening, unexpected from the sweeter nose (and later sweeter Ardbeg expressions) with a potent peat attack and spirit heat assault fast on its heels. The entry is heather, gorse and meadow sweet, but not honeyed. The mouth feel is silky but light. The honey comes with a burst of rose floral right before The mid palate's explosion of hemp and tar flavors with a light citrus acidic overlay which meld with the earthy burn to turn to ash with herbal anise and eucalyptus at the finish. The melding of grassy and floral sweet with acidic notes and peat burn combine to yield glints of lime flavor: aromatic sweet and acid and dark. It is this melding that is the secret to Nam Beist's yummy magic.

A few drops of water banish the silk from the mouth feel but turn the entry towards a wan sweetness, loaded with a sophisticated herbal complexity, lime, and nutty oak.

Ardbeg Corryvreckan 57.1 %

Corryvreckan shows its Burgundy wine finish in its color

Color: rich gold to old gold

Nose: Sweet meadow grasses with heather and blooming gorse and thicket but sharp and darkened by green lemon, fresh snapped green peas, wet hay, damp clay, and the mineral putty smell of peat. There are also heady phenolic notes of smoke, hemp ropes, iodine and salt sea airs, razor clams and the dangerous razor edge of fierce spirit heat. This is Ardbeg from 50 paces... with pistols.

Palate. Zoom! Pow! You came looking for an intense flavor experience and here it is. Young tongue forward intense sugars and zesty citrus malt, raw clams in sea water and then the white pepper bite of powerful spirit heat and a big robust expansion of gooey tar which blazes into powerful ash. The mouth feel is rich and silky. There are wine influence flavors of berries and bramble in play - mixing with the iodine and maritime and mineral notes to bring some flavors of olives and sea - but all subservient to the massive wallop of peat burn and reek.

This is a rich, seductive, full bore peat monster that skirts the edges of too much. It begs for some water. A dash of water ramps up the razor sweet into a richer, more honeyed, direction. It also makes the spicy peppery heat of the mid palate even hotter. The maritime airs of sea salt, brine, and lemon citrus on salty clams vibrant as ever. The tar-peat expansion is a tad less brutal after water- but still ranging and challenging. This is an intense kick-butt Islay peat monster of the first rank.

Conclusions:

Tasting these two head to head shows clearly that something has definitely been lost in the vintage gap and the coping mechanism of releasing young spirit in a carefully crafted, nicely barrel managed way. There is a grace and beauty and balance in Nam Beist that is absent in Corryvreckan. In its place is a vibrancy and sheer raw power that operates on a much bigger scale. A brilliant string quartet is replaced by a couple of electric guitars and a wall of amps. So something is lost - but something, too, is gained. Corryvreckan is a monster dram. Drinking it is very much like quaffing Bruichladdich's Port Charlotte offerings. These are big peat monsters that challenge and delight. But they are not the graceful beauties of old. Time will tell if evolving styles and powerful market forces mean that those old and stunning flavor notes are gone for good.

Ardbeg Alligator: A Soft Sweet Pussycat

Ardbeg was saved from closure by the 1997 sale to Glenmorangie - a step that brought Bill Lumsden's creativity. Lumsden, master distiller, is a pioneer and genius with wood finishes and interesting mash bills at Glenmorangie. Some have said that this creativity was rendered necessary there because Glenmorangie suffered a loss of flavor complexity in its base distillate over the decade prior to his arrival in the mid 1990s. I haven't tasted very old Glenmorangie yet so, personally I can't say. When Lumsden took over at Ardbeg he faced a similar problem to the one Jim McEwan had at Bruichladdich. New production not going to be ready for years and a gap in production timing. Lumsden responded in a similar way: with innovative wood finishes - and also with a strategy of releasing no age statement expressions that vatted some of the mature stuff with quantities of the younger stuff made since reopening. At the same time, the popularity of malt whisky has exploded and appetite for Ardbeg's richly peated flavor signature has reached a sort of mania. Old bottlings have become insanely expensive. Even the new no age statement stuff retails for quite a high price. Some resent this as gouging - others tolerate it as supply and demand. The resentment fixates on Ardbeg's rather prominent marketing efforts. Is Ardbeg over priced and over hyped? Maybe so. Is the whisky delicious and worth it anyway? You're not going to get an argument on that score from me.

Ardbeg Alligator, is universally reviewed with some mention of alligators (the animals). The marketing famously centers on them and their fierce snapping jaws. But, as has been pointed out extensively the name is due to its being crafted by aging sweet 'n peaty Ardbeg in barrels that have been so intensively charred that an "alligator" pattern of char burn has formed inside the casks. Thus, in this example we see the full spectrum of Ardbeg's issues: hyped, extensively marketed with a gimmick, no age statement, expensive ($99/bottle), limited (and mostly sold out), and made with a fascinating new wood barrel angle. What's the verdict?

Ardbeg Alligator Committee Reserve 2011 51.2%

Color: rich full gold

Nose: honey malt and phenolic "industrial putty" peat dominate the nose. There are also salty sea airs with wafts of iodine, clams and low tide flats, cut hay, and a gentle distant hint of wet dog. I'm well aware that this is the kind of descriptive language that make non-whisky people literally laugh out loud at us, but this is a lovely Islay nose that I found perfectly appetizing.

Entry is momentarily sweet with malt sugar and then with the darker sweetness of char. This is the sweetish burn essence of charred wood. The midpalate expansion is gentle for a dram of this proof with rich creamy lactones and a silky mouth feel. Peat takes over as the mid palate reaches full swing with an earthy burn. The peat drives the turn the finish as gentle wood ash. Ash and oak tannins and a lingering herbal malt mark a fairly long finish as you'd expect of a big cask strength peated Islay from deeply charred casks.

Adding a few drops of water thins the body but sweetens the hello. Where is the spirit heat? This among the more gentle and smooth Ardbegs I've had. It drinks a lot like Ardbeg 10 with an array of additional char flavor notes added along side.

I'm a sucker for this sort of thing. Delicious, but a very small incremental step up from the base expression. As such, close to 5 stars.

****

It's stunning that the flavor signature of the charred barrel is so readily apparent. Striking too, was the young nature of the spirit with fresh sugars and fresh phenolic flavors. However, the gentleness I detect stood up in a head to head comparison with another Ardbeg in the speed tasting organized by Graham of the Perfect Whisky Match:
http://www.cooperedtot.com/2012/07/speedwhisky-4-drams-in-15-minutes-then.html

In the speed tasting it was quite clear that Alligator's favor density and peat attack were well behind that of Ardbeg's sherried Uigedail expression.

Anyway - close to academic. This item is sold out pretty much everywhere.

Personal notes on an evening of tasting

Glen Spey 21 - 2010 edition OB cask strength - potent wood spice &
highland fruit basket

Clynelish 29 Caledonia Selection 1972-2002 59.3% Incredible roses,
paraffin, complex fruits & sea air and salty pickle. The highlight of
the night - but there were many others

Bruichladdich 1970 OB 44.2% CS - Fruity & maritime, almost a twin to
the Clynelish - but slightly less floral & without the acid pickle
note.

Ben Nevis 34 1966 Black Adder Raw Cask 49.7% Unbelievable Chocolate
coffee & violets flavor signature with odd exotic incense perfume
notes. Another highlight

Bowmore 12 OB 43% bottled in 1960s or 70s w/ tax stamp for US. -
Unbelievably complex. Clams, hemp, honey, earth, old bottle mineral
notes, huge wet vinyl iodine sweet rich.. Wow! A highlight

Port Ellen 22 1982-2004 single Cask for PLOWED Douglas Liang 61.6%
Sweet dense lemons, and lemon drop candy,sea iodine, honey, road tar
turning to ash. Huge. Another highlight

Glen Grant 31 1971-2003 Black Adder Raw Cask 55.7% sherried. Black
walnuts, dark chocolate, bubble gum floral fruity sweetness, big
orchid dark floral. A stunning highlight!

Ended with a Balmonach 1961-1980 46% Cadenhead dumpy. Intense floral
incense fruit bomb. Palate was already blitzed. Should have had this
before the peat bombs.

Bruichladdich "The Laddie Ten" outshines the beauty of its tale.

Bruichladdich "The Laddie Ten" is a phoenix rising from the ashes. Bruichladdich ("normally pronounced brook-lad-dee, or by some Gaelic speakers as broo-ee-clah-dee" according to the wiki article) was built in 1881 with the highest stills in Islay - to produce a pure and lovely spirit. It had a characteristically Hebridean history of conflict, struggle, and many instances of changing hands until 1994 when it was closed - apparently forever - for being "surplus to requirements".

It was purchased by a group of investors led by Mark Reynier of Murray McDavid on 19 December 2000 and Jim McEwan was brought from Bowmore (where he had worked since the age of 15) to manage the operations. McEwan's creative vision has made Bruichladdich one of the most dynamic and exciting distilleries in Scotland in the years since - mainly through the use of creative finishes on old stock produced before the shut down, and through the creation of young strongly peated expressions. The classic style of Bruichladdich - unpeated, sweet and floral with a hint of sea, takes time to mature. That meant waiting until at least 2011. And indeed that's what happened. The Laddie Ten is the classic style, made entirely by the new Bruichladdich team.

"The ten year old single malt, the first distilled under the new regime, went on sale following an emotionally charged ceremony as the bottles began to come off the Islay bottling line."

"Managing Director Mark Reynier, the man behind re-establishing Bruichladdich, said “It’s an inordinately proud and emotional moment for all of us. This is our first spirit we distilled once we got the old girl going again. And it’s not been easy; the Laddie 10 is the very hard-won fruit of a decade of unrelenting blood, sweat and tears by the whole team.'"

"The Laddie 10 is created by whisky legend Jim McEwan, designed to show off the timeless, Bruichladdich qualities of elegance, balance, purity and fruit, with that famous sea breeze tang."

http://www.bruichladdich.com/library/distillery/the-10-year-struggle

It's a moving legacy for a dram of whisky. The question is - is it good enough to honor the legacy?

Bruichladdich The Laddie 10 46% abv.

Color: new 14 carat gold

Nose: honey, heather floral blooms of sweet roses and magnolias and less sweet lilies and daffodils - rich and lovely. A hint of citrus. Then a whiff of band-aid vinyl, salt air from ocean breeze. A classic Laddie aroma.

Entry is gloriously honeyed, sweet and floral with a lovely silky mouth feel. Notes of yellow pear and bourbon vanilla seeds billow. The mid-palate expansion is spicy and rich. Floral vanillas, creme broullet custard (without baking spices) fill the mid. The turn shows a whiff of peat, not as smoke or earth but as a dusky note and a tingle of spicy warmth. The finish is long, gentle, warm and only slightly oaked. Few tannins, but some lingering spice of peat heat. A delightful sweet lacy floral yet spicy and character-filled dram. This is better than the Laddies of the 80s and 90s by far - but squarely in that classic style. McEwan has fully redeemed Bruichladdich and then some. Way better than I was expecting. A superb standard expression of Laddie.



A few drops of water amps up the less sweet floral notes at the expense of the sweeter perfume in the nose and makes the hint of sea a bit brighter. On the palate sugars are accentuated, but at the expense of some mid-palate richness. Pear comes close to turning to melon. Water is marginal at best. Perhaps just one or two drops. It's the conflation of sea and peat that complete as a foil the white fruit sweetness and floral entry that is so beguiling here. Borderline 5 stars and as pleasing as any $50 bottle of Scotch Malt that exists on the market.

(samples are 3cl bottles from Master of Malt)

****

A lengthy discussion on twitter concerned where the peat flavor notes in this expression (and Rocks) comes from as these use unpeated malt. The consensus (led by Oliver Klimeck of Dramming.com) is that it isn't coming from the water, but rather from cross contamination from stills, mash tuns, and other distillery equipment that is used to produce peated expressions at other times.

(Update: Seven hours after I posted this Reuters broke the news that Reynier is in negotiations to sell Bruichladdich to Remy Cointreau)

The news about the planned buy out is igniting a firestorm of controversy. John Hansell writes on the Malt Advocate blog

"Am I sad about this? Sure, a little bit. But this is the nature of the business. Distilleries get bought and sold. Even fiercely independent ones… Hopefully, a deal like this will be good for the consumer in the long run.
What is more painful to read, however, was Mark Renier’s comment to my post back then:

“No we are not interested in selling. Life is too exciting where we are just now with all the things we have been working on over the last decade finally starting to come to Market…”

Now that, my friends, makes me sad."
http://www.whiskyadvocateblog.com/2012/07/09/bruichladdich-selling-to-remy/


Olly Wehring, on Just Drinks, provides a pragmatic counterpoint:


"So, the purists may be aghast at today's news. But, ask yourself this: if somebody came to you to buy what you have found to be "a rollercoaster, not just a financial rollercoaster; it's been an emotional rollercoaster" since you bought it for US$10.1m 12 years ago, and offered you around US$52.8m, what would you do?"
http://www.just-drinks.com/comment/purists-schmurists_id107535.aspx
(note - subsequently Mr. Wehring has informed me that the final figure is around half that . However when the news of the deal finally broke, the final figure is 58 million pounds - quite a bit more than the original estimate).

Sure enough, the purists have been publicly wringing their hands on twitter with comments like the following:

@Fr1day:

@markreynier should @Bruichladdich lovers be worried? Will you & Jim stay on for the foreseeable future to ensure consistency? So many Qs

Chris @cpstecroix:

@scotchblog I wonder what will happen to the integrity of the product...we're just getting to the good stuff with the laddie 10.

Indeed, the Laddie 10 has been a frequent topic in the issue of concern over the future of Bruichladdich - as a touchstone for the quality work that the team has wrought.

The twitter discussions have continued. I'll post a few of the highlights below:

Ian Buxton, Author of 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die (and 101 World Whiskies to Try Before You Die) nails the essential question of expansion:

Ian Buxton @101Whiskies

Seems to me the interesting question is, will Remy build new Port Charlotte distillery? @Bruichladdich @just_drinks

Tim Read of Scotch & Ice Cream and I get to the emotional heart of the issue with Mark Reynier:

Tim Read @tmread

The surest sign of your business being a success is the intensity with which people get upset when you sell it. (congrats @markreynier)

Josh Feldman @cooperedtot

@tmread @markreynier Awesome comment on the whole bruhahalala-ddich today, Tim. What a donneybrook. Do whatever is best for Laddie, Mark.

Mark Reynier @markreynier

@cooperedtot @tmread Remy have the funds to grow The Laddie even quicker than we can - & firmly establish it in the top ten.

Josh Feldman @cooperedtot

@markreynier @tmread Good luck with it. People are only so fierce about this decision because they have come to love Bruichladdich as I have

Mark Reynier @markreynier

@cooperedtot @tmread it feels like a bereavement cycle: shock, sorrow, anger, regret, resolve, calm, hope. Guess it might to others too.

Josh Feldman @cooperedtot

@markreynier @tmread ..You saved it. For that I am eternally grateful. With luck it will be here long after we are all gone: bigger than us.

Mark Reynier @markreynier

@cooperedtot @tmread That's the idea.

Mark Reynier @markreynier

@cooperedtot @tmread "one can only regret what one didn't do."

Follow up. The deal was confirmed on July 23, 2012. Read Mark Reynier's moving account in his statement - briefly up on the Bruichladdich site, but still up on his own Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/mark.reynier.1