Single Cask Nation: It's About Cask Selection

Single Cask Nation (http://singlecasknation.com/)  is a private members-only independent bottling business which is part of the Jewish Whisky Company founded by Joshua Hatton and his partners Jason Johnstone-Yellin and Seth Klaskin about 3 years ago.  Hatton is also a whisky blogger at http://www.jewmalt.com/ - a very impressive whisky blog.  Johnstone-Yellin is also a whisky blogger at the perhaps even more impressive  http://www.guidscotchdrink.com/

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of tasting the Single Cask Nation line with Josh Hatton (@jewmalt) and a group of very welcoming Jewish gentlemen in New Rochelle, NY.  This wasn't my first time tasting Single Cask Nation's line.  I had had parts of it at Whisky Live last year and at Single Cask Nation's second Whisky Jewbilee last autumn - their phenomenally impressive fledgling whisky show.  This time, however, with a smaller room and more intense focus I finally got it.  I had always wondered about single cask clubs like this.  "Why bother"?  You can buy single cask bottlings from independent bottlers like Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead, Wymiss, and a host of others.  Why do I need to join a club?  But with Josh Hatton walking us through the selections I finally understood.  It's not just that each selection is bottled at cask strength in a minimally fussed with way.  (Although this is real difference from a lot of single cask bottlings you find from IBs.)  It's that the selections each have a story - a particular angle on the flavors of that distillery.  This has to do with the palate of the people doing the cask section.  When you join a club like this you are putting a bet down on the palate of the people doing the cask selection.  The idea is that the payoff will be interesting whiskies worth drinking with the risk involved in making selections substantially reduced by the pre-selection going in.  This isn't just marketing talk.  It involves people you can meet, talk to, drink with, and come to trust;  a palate you respect.  It's not, as is the cask of, say, Gordon and MacPhail, a series of contractual relationships that give them access to rare distilleries you cannot get via an OB bottling.  Rather it's that only special casks that really impress the bottlers are chosen at all.  It's a curatorial thing.  You're joining someone on their whisky journey.  Obviously this only works if the selections speak to you.  Here I found each selection a cat and mouse game where there was a twist on some aspect of what you'd expect.

Joshua Hatton is a compelling presenter.

Arran 12 54.8% - Spanish oak pinot noir cask.

Color: pale amber
Nose:  Lush sweet floral rose, vanilla, and turkish delight (fruity with powdered sugar on it).  Rancio, figs, and sherry lurk beneath and some earthy loam and mineral dust beneath that.  Layers and layers in this nose.
Palate:  Sweet honeyed malt on the opening, with a rich beautiful expansion that brings out dense layers of nectarine fruit, fig jam, lemon candy, green apple, sherry, estery floral melon and yellow fruits, vidalia onion, sweet oak and sandalwood perfume.  The finish is long and gently spicy with tannin heat.  Layers and layers of fruit, wax, flowers, malt, tannins, heat, spice and oak.  This is a 12 year old?  This is an Arran?  And extraordinary cask.  It's more complex than any other Arran I've yet tasted.

With a drop of water things get more meaty on the nose, with animals and minerals more in evidence.  But things open up with more richness on the palate.  The mouth feel becomes more silky and the spice is enhanced.  This is a rich mouth filling experience balanced between unctuous fruity florals and black pepper spices and dark toothy oak.  This shows Arran squarely hitting mainstream Highland Scotch flavors (while, granted Arran is an Island malt), and achieving flavor density and balance in the process.

*****

Glen Moray 7 58.8%  Full maturation in a Fino sherry cask

Color: medium amber with coppery glints

Nose: Iodine, vanilla, oak.  The lingering note of iodine speaks to the youth of this dram.  If you let it air out a lot, it retreats and more mature aromas of figs and bourbony charred oak come to dominate.

Palate: sweet vanilla opening, sherry rancio fig expansion, turn has smoke and earth and rising oak.  The finish brings back the young note of the nose with a touch of iodine, lingering oak tannins with some sandalwood oak perfume.  Tartness and fruity sweetness vie.  With a drop of water there are white grapes and strawberries on the opening.  But the expansion is darker with complex spice, caramel, fig cake, and brown betty flavors in the mid-palate but the same drying finish.  Big - nay, hugely flavored with elements of wine cask, old oak, and some of the iodiney flavors of youth too.  This very young Speyside whisky turns most everything I thought I knew about maturation on its head.  Normally only peated drams are bottled this young in carefully selected single cask bottlings.  But this is not a young hot peat monster.  It's a young complex, sweet wine drenched dram that alternately tastes young but then very mature indeed.  Fino was an interesting choice here.  Fino is dry.  Indeed, this doesn't come off as sherried.  It comes off as fruited and regal.  Tasted blind I would be hopelessly confused.  It doesn't really taste like any recognizable genre of Scotch.

****

BenRiach 17 53.2% abv. 2nd fill ex-Bourbon barrel

Color: pale gold

Nose:  Putty, clay, peat, medicinal bandages, honey heathery meadow.  Deeper there are herbal vegetal notes.

Palate - opens sweet and lemony and then glows in to rich earthy peat.  This is superficially Caol Ila or even Port Ellen territory, but the lemony here waxes into a more fruity profile with air and time.  There are layers of tart apple,  pineapple, and quince  and white melon underneath.  The expansion shows a smooth, clean, earthy and warming peat.  This is a mature Highland malt whisky that drinks like a good Islay malt of decades past.  Tasted blind this would fool a lot of people.  BenRiach is known for its peated expressions.  Somehow this doesn't taste quite like any of them.  It's hard to say what this tastes like.  It's pretty unique.

****

Dalmore 12 46.1% 12 years in refill bourbon barrel then 10 months finish in PX Spanish oak cask.

Color:  Medium amber with gold tints

Nose:  A dry nose of sun baked earth, dried flowers, bresaola, alfalfa, and fragrant sawed yard aged oak belies the explosion that awaits.

Palate: a titanic blast of treacle sweet honeyed figs, fig cake, fig newtons and fig compote leap out a the opening and just get bigger through the expansion where notes of rancio, more black fruits and baked figs with port add up.  At the turn the oak asserts - lovely old oak.  The finish is long and sherried and oaken.  Wonderful.  This is 46%?  This is a true cask strength experience.  Why aren't all Dalmores this big?

A drop of water ups the air cured meats in the nose and adds an herbal undercurrent.  But the palate is sweetened and enriched further.  This is a lush, succulent, over-ripe candy-sweet dessert dram of high order.  This is a 12 year old?  An inspired cask selection.

*****

Laphroaig 6 57.8% 

Color: straw

Nose: Lemon, fresh grass (hay), putty, some fresh ocean air.  With more air, some goats in the distance.

Palate: big soft gentle lemon-cream chiffon opening, with some pointed grassy sugars and fruity acid that adds zing and salivation. After the soft creamy opening there is a strong expansion with heat and peat that shows you this is cask strength.  The peat is a clean earthy peat reminiscent of Bruichladdich's Port Charlotte.  Earthy, and burning, but not the usual cigarette note encountered on young Laphroaigs.  The turn is marked by the creamy lemony quality driving through the peat's gradual turn to ash.  The finish is long and gentle, alternately malty, ashy, and slightly herbal.  

Josh challenged us to some blinds later on.

Tasted blind I would guess Port Charlotte, Kilchoman, or perhaps a young Port Ellen.  I would never guess Laphroaig.  Unusually clean and pure and lemony for Laphroaig.  A really special cask.

Water amps up the animal and clay and putty of the peat in the nose.  But it adds a richness to the mouth feel and a honeyed aspect to the palate opening that are vital.  With water it's more herbal and creamy on the opening, bigger and spicier on the expansion with a peat that has become more polite, but also richer, with more spice less burn, enriched by a delicate chamois animal skin flavor.  Rich and ashy on the turn with a finish that lingers even longer on road tar, blowing ash and soft herbal bitters.  A grand slam.  With water this is drinking almost like a mid 1970s example of a young Port Ellen.  Powerful, yet poignant.

*****

Kilchoman 4 58.2% - Buffalo Trace ex-Bourbon barrel

Color: straw

Nose:  coal tar, road dust, sweet cream, a hint of mint.  Underneath there is some broth and some oregano.

Palate: explosive, sweet and instantly herbal with effusive licorice, verbena, and lemons.  The lemons wax towards the end of the opening, becoming creamy and sweet with white chocolate and buttery graham cracker smores.  The expansion to the mid-palate is big and prickly, with plenty of lemon acid, sweet cream, and a growing surge of peat heat that smolders with earth and clean anthracite.  At the turn the peat is turning to clean ash and herbal bitters with lingering black licorice, lemon pith and rind and a soft creamy aspect still carrying through.  This is classic Kilchoman - but with the intensity of cask strength.

Water brings up animal skins in the nose, like the Laphroaig before it.  But here it's more about the herbals and licorice and coal tar on the nose.  Water amps up the sweetness of the opening and adds viscosity to the mouth feel.  This is rich, creamy, lemony, and aggressively peated stuff with real Port Charlotte PC7-like anthracite coal notes in the peat.  This is high praise coming from me.  Rich, cerial sweet and creamy on opening it rapidly transitions to peat monster burn and then turns to ash, lemons, and burning earth at the turn.  The finish is long with ash, tar, licorice root and wormwood.  Sophisticated and rather august.  This drinks like one of the cask strength monsters of Islay - which, indeed, it is.

*****

Conclusions:  Impressive.  Each selection epitomizes something and also plays a twist on the expectations you'd have for each distillery.  A host of things jump out at me.  Most of these whiskies drink way older than their chronological ages.  Some, like the Glen Moray play with your head, exploding your notions about maturation.  They also tend to belie the usual flavor profiles for their distilleries or even their regions.  But the bottom line for me is that they are all good - really good.  I'm sold.  Indeed, I was sold.  I became a Single Cask Nation member that night.

Part of the excitement with the Jewish Whisky Company are the special bottlings associated with Jewbilee.   http://whiskyjewbilee.com/  Last year there was a 15 year old Heaven Hill single barrel bourbon that is extraordinary.  You can see the bottle to the right in the image just above and in the image at top.  We tasted it (and I have a bottle I bought at the Jewbilee last year).  It's very special.  Rather like you might expect an Elijah Craig 18 or 20 might be at full cask strength if they offered such a thing.  There were 87 bottles and they sold out instantly.  This year there is a special unique blend from High West that features rye whiskey vatted with an oddly flavorful oddity called "Light Whiskey".  We got to taste it too (blind).  I guessed it was a mature 6-8 year old rye finished in Sauternes cask.  I was wrong.  New society-only bottlings include a 2 year old single barrel rye from Cacoctin Creek in Virginia, as well as a 20 year old single barrel Scotch.  There is an effusive creativity and an American perspective going on with Single Cask Nation, beyond just some good Scotch whisky palates.
Disclosure:  Josh Hatton generously gave me samples of each whisky so that I could leisurely write formal tasting notes at home.  However I purchased a membership on the spot with my own money.

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/

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

Jura Prophecy melds frangrant sweet with heat and peat.

Jura is the island jutting out like a peninsula between the Scottish mainland and the island of Islay.  It has a tiny population of 200 souls.  Whisky distillation, which had ceased at the turn of the 20th century, was resurrected in 1963 to provide an economic focus for the island.  This account and the development of the bottlings is admirably described on Malt Madness: http://www.maltmadness.com/whisky/jura.html
Gal Granov recently posted a lovely and loving depiction and travelogue of his experience visiting the distillery at Jura:
http://whiskyisrael.co.il/2012/05/10/visiting-isle-of-jura-distillerypart-i-of-ii/

Today I'll be tasting a sample of Jura Prophecy obtained from Master of Malt.  Prophecy is the top of the line of the regular editions.  It is a mature and heavily peated expression (as opposed to the more lightly peated "Superstition" expression).  Jura's "house" flavor signature, particularly as seen in the 10 and 16 year expressions is sweet with citrus and fruit flavors and a bit of the sea.  I'll be curious to see how peat sits with that flavor signature.

So, what's up with the name "Prophecy"?

From the Jura web site:
"In the early 1700’s the Campbells of Jura evicted a wise old seer. Bristling with resentment, she prophesised that the last Campbell to leave the island would be one-eyed with his belongings carried in a cart drawn by a lone white horse. Over time the story became legend and the prophecy drifted from memory. Until 1938, when Charles Campbell, blind in one eye from the Great War, fell on hard times and led his white horse to the old pier for the last time."
http://www.isleofjura.com/distillery/classic-bottlings/prophecy.aspx

Truth?  Fiction?  Who cares?  It's fun.

Some more pertinent information about this expression is found on Ruben's WhiskyNotes (There's a lively debate about caramel color in the comments following the post):

"It’s a mixture of casks with different peat levels and peat styles, finished off by a 1989 oloroso sherry butt from Gonzalez Byass. It’s non-chill-filtered but coloured with caramel, I’m afraid."
http://www.whiskynotes.be/2009/jura/jura-prophecy/

Jura Prophecy 46%

Color: coppery amber.

Nose: Fruity notes (wine gums), citrus, pear, putty, honeyed malt, slight iodine, and distant smoke. Peat and fruity eaters all over this nose. Literally makes me drool.

Entry with a lovely light honeyed toffee sweetness and a whiff of roses. The mouth feel is creamy and silky. The mid-palate blooms with some spice heat (I think this is the cinnamon many reviewers speak of), well-done stewed peaches and caramel and a bit of the sea. Then at the turn an ash note appears and you sense the peat. This peaty flavor builds as you sip, growing from a mild, scarcely noticeable influence to a clear tar and ash peat flavor profile.

A drop of water makes the nose a tad less intense but works to make the jammy sweetness hold into mid-palate and it also makes the heat and peat tar flavors pop. Sweet then heat then tar and ash - I like it.

I was just rocking to a very similar flavor profile last week with Amrut Fusion. So I poured a dram of Fusion and put them head to head.  Prophecy has more fruits in the nose and more citrus notes in the peachy mid-palate.  Amrut's floral entry is comparably sweet and floral, but more focused on vanilla.  Amrut also has a cardamom note and more burn in the finish. Amrut has greater amplitude (more vivid flavors, ultimately).  Jura has a more refined and complex palate range, with less of the rough edges.  Ultimately, despite the many differences in specific tasting points the common ground of sweet floral and toffee entry followed by citrus in the mid-palate, with heat, and peat notes on the back end that were initially hiding is striking. The sweet, then heat, then peat arc is a lovely and unusual progression that they share.

Bottom line Jura Prophecy is delicious. Thanks for bottling at 46% and not chill filtering. This is a clear success.

****

Like Fusion - high 4 star territory.  If I had to choose one over the other I would pick Prophecy by a whisker.

Two expressions of Springbank Cask Strength: One Coopered in Sherry, One in Bourbon Cask. Which is Better?

It's often an interesting topic when it comes to the distiller's decision to barrel age or finish a whisky in various flavored woods, or not.  A big topic in Scotch is aging in sherry casks.  There are many who love the hint of sherry flavor, or the big wallop of the sherry bomb.  Others, more purist, don't want their Scotch to faithfully taste of sherry and prefer more neutral wood aging, such as ex-bourbon American oak casks - famous for their large pore size and excellent flavor characteristics.  You come across aspects of this topic in many venues.  Last year I came across it in a review in Whisky Advocate magazine's Blog which profiled 4 interesting 14 year old sherry finished expressions of Springbank's excellent cask strength offering:

8/1/11 Post John Hansell:
"Here’s a round of single cask Springers matured completely (not finished) in various wine casks for the U.S. market. All four are solid efforts—it’s really a matter of personal preference. (Try to taste them before you buy.) A general comment: most of the single cask releases are matured in some sort of wine or rum cask. While this is nice, I would love to see several single cask, cask strength, and fully-matured ex-bourbon barrel bottlings offered for a change. — John Hansell"
http://www.whiskyadvocateblog.com/2011/08/01/review-four-springbank-single-casks-for-the-u-s-market/

(emphasis is my own)  The comments below carry this theme onward: 

two-bit cowboy says:

August 1, 2011 at 5:04 pm

“While this is nice, I would love to see several single cask, cask strength, and fully-matured ex-bourbon barrel bottlings offered for a change.” — John Hansell  I’m with you on that one!


I didn't think too much about it, but this year I came across a bourbon cask version of Springbank Cask Strength (this one aged 13 years) on http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/index.php?p=detail&pid=863&cat_id=
This got me to thinking: "I wonder if John Hansell and Two-Bit Cowboy are right?  Is a bourbon cask expression going to be better than a sherry cask version of essentially the same Springbank?" 
I looked around and, sure enough, Park Avenue Liquors still had one of the four sherry cask finished versions: the Manzanilla.  It looked dark and lush and despite the Blog post's seeming consensus that the paler bourbon aged example might be better I was pretty certain in my bones that the sherry finished one was going to be more succulent and lush.  It was a year older, right?  It was darker and prettier, right?

FYI-I'm not going to discuss the magnificent Springbank distillery in this review, or its storied Campbelltown location.  I have discussed these things elsewhere on this blog and others have done it much better - for example:
http://www.whiskyfun.com/Springbank.html
http://www.maltmadness.com/whisky/springbank.html


FYI - Here's what the Whisky Advocate blog had to say about this particular one of the four:

Springbank, 14 year old, Manzanilla Cask (#259), 54.8%, $100

"Complex citrus (orange, tangerine, lime, and a hint of lemon), honeyed malt kissed by maple syrup, caramelized pineapple, cinnamon, and a dusting of nutmeg. Nutty toffee on the finish."
Advanced Malt Advocate magazine rating: 86"
- John Hansell
http://www.whiskyadvocateblog.com/2011/08/01/review-four-springbank-single-casks-for-the-u-s-market/


Here are my tasting notes on this expression:

Color: rich coppery amber

Nose: rich nutty sherry with a slightly tangy acidic note, Like toffee hazelnut dessert wine lemon-lime with dusky oak perfume. Underneath is a faint salty maritime low-tide note which sits uneasily with the sherry sweet.

Entry is dry and elegantly lean. There's a big expansion of dry raisin, spicy heat and a juicy citrus sherry mid-palate bloom. Toffee and nutty brown-wine notes follow. At the turn to the finish is a sour note - lemon or a twist of lemon in balsamic. Maritime airs float around with salt and sea. The finish is medium-short with tannin bite but comparatively little oak flavor.

It's richly flavored, yet lean and elegant and distinctive but has some off notes in the nose and the finish. It's vinous in exactly the way Manzanilla would be - but the fit with the eclectic Springbank flavor profile is a bit strained.  The sea salt and sour finish clash a bit with the nutty vinous sweetness.  More time in the glass and more air make the entry honeyed and lush enough to help carry the finish.

****

Here are my tasting notes on the bourbon cask aged expression:

Springbank 13 year old Single Cask - Cask 189 - 186 bottles 56.9% - for the Belgian market 

from Belgium's WhiskySamples:

Color: Gold
Nose: bee's wax and honey. Salted porridge, butter, floral meadow, faint sherry. Further nosing baked sweets with red bean paste deep in behind the honey and sherry vine and salt. It's a rich and lovely nose - redolent of comfort foods and floral beauty.

Entry is honeyed and rich with beehive flavors of honey, bee's wax, and oatmeal. Midpalate bites with authority as you'd expect with a cask strength offering. There is august malt sugars and a faint hint of violets. There is also salt air and maritime influence. The turn to the finish brings out a slight dank bitterness like the after taste of drinking beer. The finish is long and lingering with a distinctive mix of honey mead, salty air, sour oak and the lingering flavors of sea air. How can the nose, entry and midpalate be so beautiful and the finish so, well, odd? More air helps allay the bitter sour notes. After half an hour or so of nursing I'm getting some lingering sweetness in the finish that help carry the day. The issue is the interplay of salty maritime influences with the lowland fruity honeyed flavors.

****

Conclusion:  Both are delicious in their own way - with lovely entries and mid-palates; both are flawed in similar ways: sour notes towards the finish.  While this similarity shows the clear kinship of the crafting of the new make, the striking differences in nose and flavor signature show the marked effects of barrel aging.  While both clearly have their charms, I ended up going with John and Two-Bit.  The bourbon aged example was sweeter, richer, more true to the Springbank flavor profile DNA and ultimately the more inviting dram in the end.  And bottom line on both: good but not among the really greats from this great distillery.

Bowmore Tempest swirls rich sweet fruit and nut flavors with peat and tidal flats bitter tang.

I confess that I haven't been a huge fan of Bowmore over the decades. My feeling was that big rich expressions were expensive while the affordable entry models lacked intensity. Bowmores have a distinctive flavor profile that dials down Islay's usual big peat and sea air and dials up a nutty fruity aspect more typical of the Highlands. Bowmore Tempest is a cask strength expression aged in first fill bourbon casks for 10 years and served up without chill filtering or coloring. Batch one was lauded in 2009. The sample I'm drinking today is from 2010's Batch 2 (a sample from http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/). 2011's Batch 3 is the current offering. I've been anxious to try Tempest to see if they really achieved an affordable Bowmore that really nails their flavor profile in big bold strokes.

Bowmore Tempest 10 56% abv

OB first fill bourbon Batch 2 2010
Non-chill filtered no coloring added.

Color: rich golden amber

Nose: Sweet with toffee, and brazil nuts. Further nosing reveals almost Speyside-like fruity notes of honeysuckle, pear, and melon. There is spirit heat and some maritime salty airs and warm peaty smoky tinges. In the back there are some mineral notes of gypsum and granite. Complex, big, appetizing. Scrumptious.

Entry is huge with honey, toffee candy and then a big spicy expansion of prickly heat, oak, peat, and bitters. The bitters have herbal and also peat (tar and ash) flavor elements. At the finish the bitter fades to oak tannins and salty sea flats at low tide. Nutty, toffee, fruity, spicy, herbal peaty bitter oaky and salty maritime - these wildly divergent flavor elements kaleidoscope across the palate with each sip. Big, powerful, yet sweet and clearly sporting the Bowmore flavor signature DNA.

A wee drop of water amps up the honeyed aspect of the entry and raises the bitter of the peaty end of the mid-palate in higher relief. The putty notes of peat become clear in the nose among the nutty sweetness.

A wonderful richly flavored Bowmore. A sweeter more Highland style of Islay - yet clearly Islay to the core. It was 4 stars until I added a few drops of water. That just tipped it into 5. Succeeded they have. This is a big gutty richly flavored Bowmore that satisfies and then some.

*****

Octomore 4.2 Comus puts a honeyed glory on the blaze and the ashes.

Château d'Yquem is the highest end Sauternes, the only Premier Cru Supérieur. If you like the rich sweet yellow dessert wine Sauternes, you'll want to have it at least once in your life. It is famous for balancing sweetness and acidity with a big tropical fruit and floral nature. In the wine finish craze that has gripped the Scotch whisky world (and, beginning, the bourbon world too now) it was inevitable that Sauternes casks would be used. Probably the most famous such expression is Glenmorangie's excellent Nectar D'Or which amps up Glenmorangie's honeyed floral nature with the honeyed floral nature of Sauternes to produce the laciest most floral expression of Scotch whisky around. Whiskies finished in the casks from the regal and expensive Château d'Yquem are harder to find. A notable example is the kilobuck crystal decanter top of the line Glenmorangie Pride which I had the opportunity to taste at a Glenmorangie flight in 2010 at Keen's hosted by Paul Pacult and Bill Lumsden. Pride is intensely honeyed and regally floral with tons of figs and dates and honeysuckle flower. Pride is composed mostly of 18 year old Glenmorangie which then rested in Château d'Yquem casks for a full 10 additional years. Glenmorangie is a natural to pair with this delicate wine influence because its high stills, the highest stills in Scotland, emphasize the delicate and floral esters which whisky can possess.

Today I'll be tasting the latest expression of Octomore from Bruichladdich: 4.2 Comus. The name comes from Greek mythology. The "dot two" designation, so far, indicates a wine secondary finish. The previous wine finished Octomore was 2.2 "Orpheus" - sporting a Château Petrus finish. It was universally lauded as a big step forward for the Octomore flavor profile. The reception for the Comus expression has been more tepid, perhaps not surprisingly. It's an odd pairing - Octomore, the highest peated whisky in the world - and the sweet and floral wine influence of Château d'Yquem. Peat is a powerful and assertive flavor. It might be expected to stomp all over the more delicate d'Yquem. However, experience has taught me that Octomore has a dual nature born of Bruichladdich's extremely tall stills, the highest stills in Islay: a beautiful light sweetness up front - married to the big and assertive peat that shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, at mid-palate. So, maybe it's not so crazy after all. Bruichladdich plays this aspect of the pairing up with the white tube and the story about Comus.  Here it is from Bruichladdich's web site:

FOLLOWING ON FROM THE NOW LEGENDARY OCTOMORE ORPHEUS, THE NOW LEGENDARY JIM MCEWAN HAS CREATED ANOTHER LANDMARK OCTOMORE. COMUS WAS THE SON OF BACHHUS [GOD OF WINE AND REVELLING] AND CIRCE, DAUGHTER OF HELIOS THE SUN GOD AND A SORCERESS WHO WOULD BEGUILE THE INNOCENT INTO DRINKING HER MAGIC POTIONS.

"COMUS" WAS A PLAY WRITTEN BY POET JOHN MILTON AND FIRST PERFORMED IN 1634 AT LUDLOW CASTLE, ENGLAND. THE WORK PRESENTS THE DESPERATE BATTLE BY COMUS TO ENSNARE A BEAUTIFUL, INNOCENT GIRL AND THROUGH THE HEDONISTIC POWER OF HIS MAGIC POTIONS ­ - "HIS ORIENT POTIONS IN A CRYSTAL GLASS" - ­ ROB HER OF HER VIRGINITY. A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE ON THE BATTLE BETWEEN SENSUAL PLEASURE AND PHYSICAL ABANDON, AND REASON AND VIRTUE.
ALL VERY BRUICHLADDICH.

IN THIS OCTOMORE 4.2 "COMUS" WE SEE THIS SAME DUALITY ­ THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN THE BROODING POWER OF THE EXCEPTIONAL OCTOMORE PEAT AND THE SUBLIME ELEGANCE OF CASKS THAT PREVIOUSLY HELD THE WORLD¹S GREATEST SWEET WINE.

HENCE THE WHITE, VIRGINAL, INNOCENT PACKAGING - ­ BUT LIKE OUR HEROINE, DO NOT BE DECEIVED... ALL IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.

http://www.bruichladdich.com/the-whisky/peated-whisky/octomore/octomore-4-2-comus-167ppm 

Octomore 4.2 Comus is a lovely light gold color.

Octomore 4.2 Comus 61% abv 167 ppm

Non chill filtered.  No artificial colors.  3cl samples from http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/

Color: pale gold - a slightly richer color than the light straw of the non-wine finished Octomores.

Nose: the putty and library paste notes of big peat come first. Then the maritime salt spray notes share time with an odd vegetal note which initially had a lemon pith quality but, with more nosing, began to seem more like dry hay. There is also a little meat broth aroma behind everything a a slight mineral note like chalk. This is, frankly, an odd complex of flavor notes. Adding a drop of water amps up the putty and broth and hay at the expense of the sea spray and mineral.  I think the admixture of powerful peat aroma, sweet, and broth savory is the origin of some reviewer's sense of "rotting plant matter" - (see the April 11 post of Sku's Recent Eats).  I don't get that sense - but I do acknowledge that some of these aromas are at odds with each other.  Frankly, it hardly matters; once you start sipping something bigger trumps them all...

Entry is sweet and honeyed with a much richer mouth feel than other Octomores in my experience. The flavor signature of Sauternes is immediately apparent as a softening and richening overlay on top of the usual razor sharp sugars of Octomore's opening. This opening is lush, but with a drop of water the sugars explode and the whole fore palate becomes much more richly honeyed yet: viscous, and rich with a Sauternes like sweetness.   (The enhancement wrought by the addition of a few drops of water (only) is so profound that I consider it mandatory for this dram.)  At mid-palate where the floral aspect of d'Yquem emerges, however, the smoldering peat attack owns everything and overshadows the Yquem flavors. As in all the other Octomores the peat builds huge and smoldering in the mid-palate and turns to ash in the finish; a huge dominating flavor aspect.  This is the "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" aspect of Octomores:  the ethereal sweetness up front which gives way to a dramatic mid-palate expansion dominated by a huge wall of peat reek.  Somehow this transition, which thrilled and delighted me in other Octomore expressions, induced some regret in me here.  The Yquem glory up front is eclipsed by the massive peat attack and doesn't show up again until the palate progresses through fiery peat, road tar, and then the long finish of smoldering ash and then lingering herbal notes and a wistful final post echo of sweetness and then finally the decks are cleared for the next sip.  Is this new regret a shortcoming of this dram, or is it a testament to the beauty wrought by the lovely Yquem Sauternes finish; a beauty so lovely that I cannot bear to see it so roughly treated by the peat monster's massive shaggy bulk?  I don't know - but I pondered this with a knit brow.

The Sauternes finish has softened the "usual" Octomore initial razor sharp sugar opening and tempered and thickened it. The rich d'Yquem flavor profile luxuriates the intense sugar sting and makes it softer.  That's the bottom line here.  This is a softer, more plush and luxurious Octomore.  I don't know if I prefer it to the un-wine-finished style I've tried in the 1.1, 2.1 and 4.1 expressions.  It's different and new.  If you found the initial intense razor sharp sugar attack of these other Octomore expressions too intense, this 4.2 Comus expression will be a revelation.  Personally I'm inclined to find it an incremental improvement.  Something is most definitely gained, but something is lost too.  Softer and richer isn't unambiguously better in my opinion.  However, Octomore remains the most intense flavor profiles I've experienced and 4.2 Comus doesn't disappoint in this regard.  4.2 Comus goes new places and stretches to new extremes.  I remain quite bewitched by the whole crazy series.

*****

Octomore 01.1 Fierce or lovely; Doctor Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?

Jim McEwan of Bruichladdich has dazzled and influenced the whisky world with many of his exciting and innovative directions since taking over at the turn of the millenium.  Perhaps his boldest and most iconic direction is to make peated whiskies and bottle them young, at young hot cask strength, when the peat is fresh and fierce.  The excellent and popular Port Charlotte line exemplify this direction, but the ultimate expression of this style are the Octomores - the most highly peated whiskies in the world.  Octomore 01.1 was the first of the Octomore line and many reviews (such as this excellent one by Ruben at WhiskyNotes) identify it as the beefy brawny one.  Subsequent expressions have slightly higher phenol (peat) levels, but none were reputed to exceed it in intensity.  I didn't hesitate when an opportunity came to try it. 

Darth Vader is in the house.

Read it and weep: 5yrs 131ppm

Bruichladdich Octomore 01.1 Aged 5 years, 63.5% abv, peated at 131 ppm

Color:  pale chardonnay - a cliché, I know, but well warranted here.  Rich pale gold.

Nose:  putty, library paste, mineral clay, a hint of garage (motor oil, diesel, and petrol) and some maritime ocean air with notes of salt, iodine, and sea spray.  Further nosing reveals straw, dry malt, and some cut grass.  There is a hint of cereal sugars, but the nose is for the most part dry, mineral and industrial in feeling.

Chardonnay colored in the glass

All whisky progresses across the palate, but Octomore 01.1 divides the three phases of tasting (entry, mid-palate, and finish) into totally divergent personalities like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Entry on the palate opens with a razor sharp burst of fresh clean vegetable sugars like treacle.  This sweetness is big - carried on the wings of a ton of alcohol intensity.  This sweetness is more than big; it is huge - and unexpected from the dry nose.  The sweetness steps aside 15-20 seconds into the sip and then the mid-palate explodes with rich peat.  Earthy, smoldering, notes of tar, clean hot burning anthracite coal, tire rubber, and oil coat the tongue and mouth.  Then 20-30 seconds later, at the turn to the finish, the big tar and fiery earth turns to ash, dense and with an almost bitter cast.  Over the next few minutes the ashes fade to a wistful echo of the piercing sweetness of the opening.  There are herbal notes in the sweetness of the long long finish.  A few minutes after the sip your palate is like a motorcyclist who has tumbled on the roadway and skidded many yards to a halt through the grassy margin and emerged scraped but unscathed: a bit raw but exhilarated (and perhaps a little freaked out).  There is char and herbs and a raw feeling on the gums, cheeks and tongue - the burn of 63.5% abv.  Better have another sip.  There's the putty, clay mineral and petrol nose.  Then WHAM, the huge razor sharp and extremely intense pointed sweetness of the opening and then the rich creeping triumph of huge mouth coating tar, anthracite coal and burning smoldering earthy peat fading gradually to ash and then wistful echo.  It's like the emotional progression of the Great War, from resolve to the wings of hope to the immolation of destruction to a melancholy burning rawness after the conclusion.  Ok, granted it's not an ordeal on that scale - but it is a wildly divergent set of fairly intense experiences. 

Samples bottled for the open shelf life experiment

Yes, drinking Octomore 01.1 is like a big journey from the heights of the most intense sweetness like angel's wings to the depths of fiery hell with the most char I've every had imprinted on my tongue by any whisky. 

How about a drop of water?  Water loosens the putty note in the nose and adds a distant bit of citrus and also some larger hint of the sugars.  Sweeter, fruiter, and a bit piquant; but still with that bit of garage and petrol.  The water does nothing to restructure that stately progression from intense sweet to intense fire to intense ash.  So I try adding even more water - about 10 drops total.  Now the nose is losing it, getting noticeably weaker but floral notes and sea moss have joined the citrus and clay and petrol.  But on the tongue the sweetness is less razor sharp and more lusciously honeyed.  The transition to the peat attack of the mid-palate is more gentle and gradual, and the peat attack itself is a bit softer with the vegetal notes and wistful sweetness showing up almost at the start of the finish so that the honeyed sweet entry almost seems to hand directly off to the ashy herbal sweetness of the finish.  Water makes it less intense, but no less lovely - perhaps even more so.  This is one of the very few drams I might actually prefer with a good drop of H2O.  

Comparing this to the Octomore 04.1 I'm struck more by the family resemblance than the differences.  Both are pale, powerful, razor sharp, and intensely sweet up from with huge earthy peat in the middle and huge coal ash at the end.  The 01.1 is has more motor oil, petrol, and mineral in the nose and midpalate.  04.1 is more earth and a more restrained refined aspect.  However they are clearly kin.  Both are exceptional experiences.  Both are extreme experiences.

Highly recommended, if you think you can handle it.  And if you can find it.  Try Park Avenue Liquors in NYC.

*****

This bottle will be part on an ongoing series of open shelf life experiments inspired by the fascinating series of experiments on the effects of oxidation and evaporation on whiskey left in open bottles performed by Ryan of Value Whisky Reviews / Value Bourbon Reviews.  Follow the link above to read his 3 posts on the topic.  The experimental methodology is to fill samples when the bottle is first opened and then compare them with the bottle over time as its contents oxidize.  I'll be performing these experiments on an ongoing basis.  Thus, when I opened this bottle I filled 5 two oz. sample bottles and will compare them with the remains of the bottle over time.  I'll be looking at mouth feel, aromatics, nose, and flavor and will use Ryan's five point scale of discernible affects.  I'll try to do comparison tastings at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and a year.