Octomore Edition: 07.1, aged 5 years, 208 ppm, 59.5% abv.

Octamore (Ochdamh-mòr) is Bruichladdich's super heavily peated product line offering, supposedly concocted over a few late night drinks. Named after an old farm/distillery "above" Port Charlotte, the offerings are numbered to represent some aspect of the bottling, with x.1 meaning it was distilled using Scottish barley and/or matured in ex-bourbon casks, x.2 meaning it was matured in ex-bourbon casks and finished in ex-wine casks but recently it is used to denote travel retail release only (I believe from 6.2 and on), x.3 meaning it was distilled using Islay barley supposedly from the Octomore farm, and x.4 means virgin oak casks were used in some part of the production process. Octomores are typically bottled after around 5 years of maturation supposedly because that's when the phenols from the peated process are at their highest. Edition 07.1 was matured for five years in American oak ex-bourbon casks, super-heavily-peated whisky at 208 ppm.

Nose: mostly grapes, wax, strong peat, some smoke, obvious smokey Islay. Excellent.

Palate: intensely sour, peaty, fruits are there but take an extreme backseat, interestingly no smoke. Islay complex. A controlled sulphur element.

Finish: long, sour, slightly dry, I can still taste the peaty elements.

Very nice but tooooooooo strong. I was reeling after the first sip; peat and backseat sweetness, followed by oak and some sort of sweet wine. Like all Octomores this is extremely nice, but extremely strong. Going to give it a high grade just because it's awesome. Had this at Henry17, Busan, South Korea.

Grade: A-

Whiskyanalysis.com, 9.02 ± 0.27 on 12 reviews
Whiskyfun.com, Serge Valentin, sgp:358, 83 points
Scotchwhisky, Dave Broom, 90
Whisky advocate, Dave Broom, 86 point
Whiskynotes, Ruben Luyten, 87/100

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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