Bruichladdich’s Octomore Sequence 16 Is Lastly Right here

There are peated whiskies… after which there’s Octomore. 

Created on the Bruichladdich distillery in Islay, the house of Scotland’s best-known peated malts, Octomore raises the bar, remaining probably the most closely peated whisky on the planet since its launch in 2008.

What’s peat acquired to do with it? The partially decayed vegetation, present in ample portions on Islay, is the gasoline supply used to prepare dinner, or malt, the barley that, together with water and yeast, is used to supply Scotch whisky. The peatiness of a whisky will be chemically measured when it comes to phenol elements per million (PPM), and by that measure, Octomore whiskies are a number of orders of magnitude peatier than some other whisky in the marketplace.

The peat imparts a particular smoky taste to the completed product. Together with the whiskies’ younger age (Octomores are, with uncommon exceptions, bottled at 5 years previous) and excessive proof (they’re bottled at or near cask power), it is likely to be tempting to assume that Octomores are simply one-dimensional peat bombs, the alcoholic equal of a campfire or an ashtray. However that assumption could be wildly incorrect. “On paper, this can be a single malt whisky which shouldn’t work,” says Adam Hannett, Bruichladdich’s head distiller. “It’s too smoky, too sturdy, and too younger to have any liquid credibility… [but] there’s a lot extra depth and complexity to the liquid.”

The sixteenth version of Octomore, out there this September, isn’t any exception. It consists, as all the time, of three totally different expressions, with a fourth rolling out later in very restricted portions. Octomore 16.1 offers a baseline of types. Aged in first-fill ex-bourbon barrels for 5 years and bottled at 59.3% ABV, it’s probably the most easy of the trio when it comes to growing older.

Octomore 16.2 makes use of the identical base spirit, distilled from Scottish Mainland Concerto barley and peated to 101.4 PPM (for context, 40-50 PPM is taken into account closely peated), with the identical 5 years of growing older. Nevertheless, this expression is aged for 4 years in a mix of Oloroso sherry and Bordeaux wine casks earlier than spending a yr in Madeira and Portuguese Moscatel casks.

“That is the primary time we now have used this mix of casks in an Octomore bottling,” Hannett notes, “which is thrilling when you think about that that is our sixteenth collection! Taking liquid that had been matured in Bordeaux and Oloroso casks, I chosen the Madeira and Moscatel for the beautiful fruity and nutty flavors that they might impart, complementing the crimson fruits and spices from the unique casks.”

Octomore 16.3 is probably the most daring and experimental of the three, and at 189.5 PPM, it’s the peatiest as effectively — though not as peaty as 2024’s Octomore 15.3, which at 307.2 PPM was the second most closely peated Octomore ever launched. Hannett says of 16.3, “On paper [it] ought to be extra light however nonetheless packs a punch with regards to phenols.” It’s distilled from barley grown on a single discipline in a single farm on Islay, only a few miles from the distillery, to showcase how the grain influences the ultimate taste of the whisky.

“Islay barley is particular as a result of it’s grown in a really distinct atmosphere,” Hannett says. “The soil, the microclimate, the salt-laden air of our island residence… all of this stuff affect the character of the grain. If you get much more exact with a single farm, and even a single discipline, the malting barley evokes the truest sense of place — demonstrating that terroir and taste are intrinsically linked.”

Aged in a mixture of ex-bourbon, Sauternes, and Pedro Ximénez sherry casks for 5 years, Hannett explains that “Bourbon brings that vanilla, caramel, and coconut taste, which pairs very well with the smoke. With Pedro Ximénez, you get richness and candy darkish fruit flavors. These are balanced by the Sauternes cask, which brings a light-weight fruitiness and freshness and a citrus high quality.”

Octomore 16.4, set for launch in November solely on the distillery and on Bruichladdich’s e-commerce website, shares the upper peat degree as 16.3. Nevertheless, this expression is aged in second-fill bourbon casks earlier than being re-casked in virgin, medium-toasted French oak, leading to a noticeably totally different taste profile.

Each Octomore collection is designed to be distinctive and to face out from its predecessors, however a standard thread runs by way of all of them. “The depth of smoke, the grain’s pure sweetness, and the freshness of the spirit all work collectively,” says Hannett.  “At its core, Octomore is about boldness, readability, and complexity.” That stated, this explicit collection, just like the earlier fifteen, is a one-time launch, with all bottles produced in restricted portions — 16.1, 16.2, and 16.3 will be discovered at choose brick-and-mortar retailers; all of them, together with 16.4, can be out there on-line through the Bruichladdich website.