Port Charlotte PC8 - a chimera of sweet elegant oak and powerful primal peat.

Continuing the reviews of the Port Charlotte series from Bruichladdich. PC8 is aged in second fill ex-bourbon American oak casks, like the PC7 (and unlike the prior two expressions which were sherry and Madeira cask aged respectively). The abv has dropped to 60.5% in the 8 as the angels take their share - still full bore. 8 is yet young and hot.

Color - medium gold

Nose: earthy peat and iodine, but balanced by some vanilla sweetness and heather wildflower in the distance. With time there is some rubber and toffee butterscotch.

Entry is sweet and potent. Honeyed cereal grains, and vanilla open. Big spirit heat arrives in the midpalate expansion along with a semi-dry elegant floral highland scotch flavor married to maritime sea air, hemp rope, damp hay, burning coal and some earthy peat at the transition to the finish which is epically long and full of old oiled oak wood, earth, and quiet muted but powerful peat. As the finish unfolds with wave after wave of decaying spirit heat there are bitter notes of the toasted grain variety, lingering cereal sweetness and underlying it all a bedrock foundation of earthy peat which isn't smoky or obtrusive. With extended time there are more elegant toffee scotch flavors up front and more anthracite coal combustion in the finish.

It is bittersweet. The peat monster of the earlier expressions is partly tamed and allows the yoke of oak sugars and sweet vanilla notes to half transform it into sweet and vibrant scotch. (the other half remains wedded to the fierce and fiery peat and maritime terroir).

Bottom line, PC8 is a centaur - with an elegant and honeyed upper body and the powerful scaly haunches of the Grendel-like peat monster - now clad in thin but elegant vestments. It's a rich dram, almost delicious - but still fierce and hard.

Port Charlotte PC6 - a blistering rite of passage.

I'll skip the full tale. The bare bones orientation is that Bruichladdich, the Islay distillery with the highest stills and the tradition of sweeter, less peated and more floral drams, reopened under new management May of 2001 with Jim McEwan as master distiller. Bruichladdich was to continue tradition as sweet and clean so McEwan resurrected the Port Charlotte name for peated expressions. McEwan created a powerful cask strength expression with intense peat and big big flavors that startlingly broke the Bruichladdich mold when released at a young 5 years as PC5. The same distillate has been released each year, dwindling the stocks of that initial 2001 run. Each year features a distinct wood finish. The PC5 had a bourbon wood primary aging and a sherry cask finish. PC6 had a madeira finish. PC7 was aged entirely in American oak ex-bourbon  - as was PC8. This review is of the second year release PC6, bottled at 61.6% abv.

I have already reviewed the Port Charlotte PC7 expression and I am preparing a review of the PC8, which I have been living with a while. A sample of the PC9 is on order and PC5 has been abandoned as a an overpriced pipe dream (I simply missed the boat - with only myself to blame). I will write a comparo of the PC6,7,8, and 9 in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, I will treat the PC6 as a stand alone review here:

Color: Pale Gold with slight rosy peach blush tints

Nose: Peat and iodine first, with some floral sweetness underneath. It's like smelling heather on the peat muddy moors overlooking the salt spray with a strong head wind... The peat is the turf kind - with little smoke in the nose. Almost like Caol Ila but more more more. With extended air there is more sweetness and some nutty notes.

Entry is sharp as a razor and off dry. Huge explosion of honeyed malt and cereal grain body, earthy peat, salt cod, smoked kippers, sea air, and mineral rock. Spirit heat doesn't show up as pepper, but as fire and physical force within the peat. The peat is big, raw, visceral, and in your face. Magnified as a flavor element like never before in my experience I can examine every minute detail of the hot burning earthy peat as if under a gustatory microscope. It has salt and mud and coal-like bituminous notes: smoky, dirty, earthy, maritime. The cereal malt is bold, raw, organic feeling, and off dry. There's no honeyed forepalate refuge. The cereal is organic, sprouted, earthy and barley-flavored. The honeyed notes come late in the midpalate and they are far far below; as if you have to chew through the char to get to the sweet malted kernel beneath. Raw, immediate, direct and 150 decibels loud - Port Charlotte 6 screams the simplicity of its pungent humble elements with the subtlety of a B52 carpet bombing strike.

Folks are either going to love this in the same way they love depression era WPA photography: dark, intense, gritty, gut wrenching reality. Or they will hate it as a dark, sooty, iodiney, insanely overproofed gastronomic ordeal. And of course it is both.

For those who seek to break through their jaded complacency with pleasant malts - or those craving in-your-face terroir - PC6 delivers the goods. This isn't just a dram of whisky. This is a trial by fire.

*****

Port Charlotte 7 - Titanic explosion of flavor - weird and wonderful

Port Charlotte is a wannabe reincarnated distillery project from Jim McEwan, the mercurial genius behind the new incarnation of Bruichladdich. The malts from the Port Charlotte project all date from since when McEwan took over. They are intended to be his peated expression and peated they are. The Port Charlotte series began with a 5 year old version (PC5) that quickly became legend. The next year the expression was six years old and was called PC6 and so on until 9. I've tried PC7 and PC8 and they are among the most powerful, intensely flavored spirits I have ever tasted. The PC8 is strikingly different from the PC7 on offer here - a more yellow color, more vanilla from the oak, a more mellow peat profile. My understanding is that each year is quite distinct. They are all very young heavily peated Islay malts bottled at a searing young cask strength.
The PC7 is golden with a rosy peachy blush. When the bottle is first opened the first few drams have a very odd nose of library paste, solvent, and pork rinds - even after 15 minutes in the glass. Over time (weeks) the interaction with air mellows the nose and the solvent fades away and the library paste becomes more of an old book aroma and iodine, (the pork rinds remain). It's an odd nose - and if that was the end of the story I wouldn't have fallen in love. Entry is explosive with bean and grain sweetness joining an intense honeyed smokiness and brine and kippers. The finish is intensely long with fresh sawn wood, smoke, sea and turf joining the honey grain and smoked fish and spirity heat. The explosion of flavors is unusually intense and I want more right away. However the mouth sear from the high proof makes me slow down and have a drink of water every 3rd or 4th sip. Early on this intense young cask strength heat made me tempted to put water in it. Doing so cuts the heat but also dilutes the intense sweet salty smoke intensity that wows me. I opt for interspersing sips of water to cut the fire in my mouth and take this whisky neat.

Ultimately - extraordinary. More densely flavored than any whisky I've ever tasted. The odd nose is forgiven in the face of the rich Islay malt flavor. Wonderful - but very very strong meat.

*****