Tasting Panel Notes

This one displayed all the usual refinements this distillery is famed for: peat smoke tinged with dried exotic fruits and encroaching waves of iodine, antiseptic, kippers and peppered mackerel for starters. Then, going deeper, we found it gathered complexity with suggestions of smoked olive oil, tarred rope, creel nets and wet beach kelp. Gorgeous! Water brought out big notes of boiler and puffer smoke, eucalyptus oil, more iodine, more antiseptic and more peat. The neat palate opened like taking a big swally of cask-strength German rauchbier, plus some chunks of barbecue-charred pineapple, pure tar extracts and briny olive pickling juices. Some water gave us preserved lemons, herbal ointments, soy sauce, bonfire embers and cornichons dashed on wet beach rocks – like a hyper-real version of this famous Islay distillery. This was matured in an oloroso butt for 20 years before being transferred to a refill PX butt.