Not a lot to say about this before getting into it, just that it’s a blend from a bottler that I’ve typically liked well enough and while it’s not really available by me, I am still interested in finding budget-friendly options for a nice peaty flavor. I was hoping to have this reviewed a bit earlier, but some antibiotics eliminated my ability to do so. Rather unfortunate as I had some whisky in a barrel that could have done with more checking rather than just withdrawing small samples every now and again, but oh well, that’s a complaint for when I “review” that.
Elements of Islay Peat (Pure Islay), Islay Blended Malt, 45% ABV
Minutia: Distilled at a handful of Islay distilleries and blended together. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Smoke. Some fruit (think apples and more in the green/yellow family, not quite red) that then fights to come out over ash and seaweed. Light and vegetal tone overall.
Taste: Earthy and herbal. Slightly sweet in the vanilla/fruit area. Not terribly smoky in the mouth. Or rather, the peat doesn’t present as smoke here.
Finish: Until now. There’s a rush back in of the smoke that was in the nose, and some pepper. It lingers as largely just a warm feeling with salinity creeping in over the course. Medium.
This is fine. It’s a peated whisky when you’re looking for one. I don’t like it as much as Big Peat for a whisky that delivers when you just want some peat that isn’t necessarily overbearing. It’s a bit light, but that’s not a knock against it. And it is a touch thin, but again this is situationally desirable. When you want a lighter whisky with some peat, it can be a good choice. When you want Islay go somewhere else.
I purchased this quite some time ago by now when my whisky world hardly included anything more than Islay and the nearby islands. It’s expanded a great deal since then, but this still represents a decision from that era to start exploring more. And even though I haven’t opened it until now, it sparked far greater exploration and an expansion of my palate to the point I have enjoyed certain unpeated whiskies more than most peated ones. So, this is something of a spark that didn’t show itself until after the fire, but still I’m happy to be trying it now. They name is also particularly fun, so that’s a plus, I guess.
Glenturret 8, 2010 Vintage, Scotch Malt Whisky Society 16.38, Highland Single Malt, 59.3% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on November 25, 2010 and matured in a re-charred hogshead for 8 years yielding 315 bottles. This is part of the Peated flavor profile named “ACME ghost repellent”. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Metallic. Weird caramel/toffee. Old tropical fruit. Vanilla pops in sometimes. Leather and tobacco.
Taste: Spicy on the particular dram with the notes. Leaves and wood under it. There’s a very creamy sweetness that can sit over it (different drams did or didn’t feature it, I believe my palate was different based on prior eating and such on the different days).
Finish: Mineral and earthy. It’s mostly medium, but then a bloody meat kind of kicks in an is very much metallic/irony.
I’m not quite sure I’d describe it as a “farm in a bottle” but it’s still quite nice. A rather unique sweet note on the palate was very pleasant and contrasted well with a more grounded and earthy finish (when my palate let me experience it). It’s a really weird one, and feels both novel and familiar somehow. I’m very glad I’ve bought a few other Glenturret casks, really looking forward to them. Definitely one of the ones I’ve had a song come to mind with next to no thinking about it, too.
This excited me almost immediately. I wasn’t thrilled about a lot of the things people complained about (at least the accurate complaints, I didn’t share the complaints of an overpriced NAS whisky when the age was both stated and respectable). But still, I was more excited than frustrated at accessibility. A while ago I decided to track information and statistics to get a feel for what about a whisky would make me like it. Things like age, ABV, peatedness, cask types, maturation vs. finish, etc. I also put together a table containing certain production information of distilleries I liked/had interest in. I was interested in how much peat I tended to like, so I tracked malting PPM and new make PPM. I also tracked the fermentation time of the distilleries. As I expected, the bulk of distilleries I considered more preferred was mostly concentrated toward the higher end on the PPM list. Turned out, my most preferred distilleries were also concentrated on the end of the list with longer fermentation times. So the announcement, cheesy as the aliens were, of a distillery I like having fermented for a long time when they typically are not toward the top of that list had me fully enticed for the release. As we all know, the price and availability of this left a lot to be desired, and I couldn’t find it for close to a reasonable price despite months of trying. Fortunately, I managed to win one at an auction after a bit of the hype had died down for not too much of a premium allowing me to try this dram and really test how preferable I’ll find a whisky that had pushed the limits of fermentation, so to speak. Let’s see.
Ardbeg Fermutation, Islay Single Malt, 49.4% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in 2007 after an unplanned three week open-air fermentation and matured for 13 years yielding 8,000 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Really nice, almost too much. Definite earthy smoke, citrus, floral, wood, seabreeze, apples. Medicinal, cedar, leather, tobacco smoke (like a piper was in the room a while ago). Cake icing on a revisit after having taken a sip.
Taste: Creamy feel, spicy and musty at the gate. Develops bitter and ashy smoke with a sweet undertone taking out the spice and then dancing back and forth with it as the spice and sweetness fight for superiority.
Finish: Big time vegetal/herbal, some salty ham with a nice glaze. Leathery and salty. MediumLong.
Really interesting. The very light color for its age had me a little worried as some of Ardbeg’s premium releases have been maybe a bit young though still enjoyable. However, the fact that it has an age statement quells any concerns about the age and coloring, and this was likely just in lowly-active casks. So I’m expecting this to be spirit forward, and as far as I know, it was indeed. Nothing in the nose wows on its own, but there is so much going on and not in a way that feels disjointed it is collectively a very enjoyable nose. It’s worth noting that incidentally this sat in the glass for about 30-45 minutes due to distractions after the pour, so maybe it wants some breathing time. The palate was similarly diverse and dynamic, and again not in a way that felt like components who are more valuable than the sum of their parts. There was a note on the finish that was a bit more bitter than I’d have liked that held it back, but the part that really lingered did not feature that note and possibly this deserves an additional point (the finish just kept lingering and improving and I did adjust it up one point, the consideration is if it warranted two more). A delightful surprise given the…discussion around it. Worth the price? Probably not quite (but not far off, at least in terms of MSRP). Worth the hype? I’d say so.
A bit of a bonus “review” to cap off the Skotchtoberfest lineup. Since I had a sample of every cask used in Raasay’s recipe, rather than finish the glass I decanted them into a vessel large enough to hold it. Here’s a quick little review of that for now after a couple days all mingling in there. I have a 1L barrel, but it exploded when someone knocked it off a table and I’m not a copper so it’s back together but decorative as I don’t think it will hold any liquid at this point. I’d already aged some Connemara twice in it after seasoning with cider (excellent after its aging, btw) and with red wine, so it probably didn’t have much left in it anyway. I have ordered another, and it’s been swelling for a couple days now for me to make my own preview into longer-aged Raasay malt. Still undecided how/if I might want to put something into it, so if anyone has ideas, please chime in. Hope you enjoy.
Raasay 2, 2022 Vintage, u/thebonewolf, Island (Mull)/New Jersey Single Malt, 63.5% ABV
Minutia: Distilled on Raasay and matured in various casks for 2 years and combined and bottled by me on October 1, 2022 yielding less than 1 bottle. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Smoke, wine, wood, spice. A bit of a mess and obviously a new frankenblend but nothing off-putting
Taste: Smoke and pepper. Malty, but weirdly so.
Finish: Nice smoke, but it turns into spice. The smoke comes back with leather and keeps the pepper. Medium-short.
So just dumping the samples together doesn’t do much for them, but the finish was something I could live with in a proper whisky. Hopefully some marrying and aging time in my tiny barrel will get this together.
Score: 74
Musical Evocation: Alice Cooper – “Feed My Frankenstein”
And we wrap up Skotchtoberfest with a bottle of the second batch from Raasay. Let’s see what the batch variation is like relative to yesterday’s review.
Raasay Batch R-02, Island (Raasay) Single Malt, 46.4% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in 2017 and 2018 from peated and unpeated malt, each style matured for 3 years in ex-rye casks, virgin chinkapin oak casks, and ex-Bordeaux red wine casks. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Light smoke with an ashy quality, like from kindling rather than a roaring or dying fire. Drying red fruit. Dried stone fruit. Musty notes come in when you get your nose in there, otherwise it’s just the traces of smoke, really.
Taste: Spicy. Creamy feel. Some smoke manifests as earthy cereals.
Finish: Malt then leather and spice. Chocolate. Gets sweeter over time.
It’s not often I feel I need to comment on a handful of things, but it’s the case here. Frist, wow, surprising how much darker it is than batch R-01. I like them about the same, but differently. Batch 1 the nose was stronger but I liked the finish more here. Getting sweeter over time was weird as sweetness in the finish in my experience has typically been either a burst at the start that fades or largely consistent throughout. The peat in the nose was lighter here, which I why I enjoyed it a touch less, but based on color and lighter smoke presence I’d guess this is a touch older and not just bottled at exactly three years old, supposing the cask ratios are the same. As far as I’m concerned, Raasay has established itself as a future big player in the lightly peated market. Here’s hoping for a heavily peated line (and an unpeated one while they’re at it) somewhere down the line.
I didn’t get a bottle of this, mostly because I did get a bottle of the inaugural release so I wasn’t super motivated to get a bottle of the first batch, but there was a sample available, so here’s a review of the first batch of their typical blend.
Raasay Batch R-01, Island (Raasay) Single Malt, 46.4% ABV
Minutia: Distilled in 2017 and 2018 from peated and unpeated malt, each style matured for 3 years in ex-rye casks, virgin chinkapin oak casks, and ex-Bordeaux red wine casks. Batch R-01 yielded 26,000 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.
Nose: Smoke and leather. Non-red apple. There’s malt and floral notes to be teased out.
Taste: Creamy, vanilla. Pepper and slight smoke come in, with a woody/winey feel.
Finish: Sweet, some bitter herbal character.
While some of the components may have struck me more, this feels a whole lot more put together. This first release from Raasay of what will ostensibly be the makeup of future releases once stock matures enough is very promising. Can’t wait to see if Batch R-02 is consistent tomorrow.
