46.3% ABV, natural colour, UCF, bottled 2019. Matured in ex bourbon casks, finished in sherry casks (drample impressions #36)
To end this series on peated whiskies from anywhere but Islay, I’m bringing it close to home. Ledaig, as you well know, is made at Tobermory distillery on the Isle of Mull, some 30- 40 miles north of Islay. Not only is it fairly close to Islay in geographic terms, I’m given to understand that they source their peated barley from the Port Ellen maltings as well, so there is a clear link to Islay. There you go. Now you know. With origins dating back to the late 18th century, making it one of Scotland’s older distilleries, Tobermory’s history has been a bit of a bumpy ride at times to say the least. While spanning over 2 centuries, the distillery has seen long periods of mothballing, sometimes decades at a time. In fact, it was touch and go on numerous occasions, and things were looking particularly gloomy during yet another period of mothballing in the late 1970’ies and early 1980’ies. Some of the distillery buildings were converted into flats and parts of the production floor and storage facilities were rented out to a dairy company for cheese storage.
Fair to say that Tobermory’s faith as a distillery was hanging by a thread when finally Burn Stewart Distillers bought the place in the early 1990’ies, bringing back some life into the place. Gradually they managed to restyle and upgrade the quality of their spirit as in those days it was, in every sense of the word, a bottom shelf brand. In 2013, South African company Distell bought Burn Stewart, gaining ownership of Tobermory alongside Deanston and Bunnahabhain. Luckily, they continued the path set out by Burn Stewart, upping the quality of the whisky, thus making sure all 3 of their Scottish distilleries started to establish themselves as quality brands. A few limited releases from both unpeated Tobermory and peated Ledaig saw the light of day in those early days under Distell ownership and since 2015 Ledaig 18 is part of the distillery’s core range.
Interestingly (and despite), after a recent temporary closure in 2017 until 2019, necessary to replace and upgrade their equipment, the production capacity remained at a relatively modest 1 million LPA, equally split out between Tobermory and Ledaig. This allowed them to replace Tobermory’s previous standard 10 yo expression with a 12 yo age statement, while maintaining the 10 and 18 yo for Ledaig. What this will mean in the long run regarding depth of stock for the 18 yo, however, remains to be seen, but for now and the foreseeable future, their 18 yo is part of the core range, be it as a yearly ‘Limited Edition’ (although to my knowledge no information is revealed as far as number of bottles are concerned).
This sample was very kindly provided to me by Jim, aka the Whiskey Novice, and he did talk about this very whisky in his 100th review roughly 6 months ago. You can catch that here, and – spoiler alert – although he was a bit on the fence about it, I’ll happily share my thoughts with you on this. As per now, in fact.
On the nose, there’s unmistakably peat and smoke: clear and obvious, but not overpowering. At 38-40 ppm that counts as a well peated malt I’d say, and although the peat impact tends to diminish the older a whisky gets, it does stand its ground in this whisky, and very much so (I know, I know, I started this series stating exactly that ppm is anything but the be all and end all of peated whisky, and yet). Also, waves and waves of rich, red fruit – (overripe) berries, blackcurrant, figs and blue grapes. Salted, caramelized apples leaning towards medicinal and maritime notes. Raisin bread and cake and sweet spices. Together with the smoke this makes for a very warming, almost Christmassy sensation.
The nose almost completely transfers on the palate. The mouthfeel is bold and viscous at first but then it turns and becomes dry and ashy-sooty, making the peat and smoke notes more prominent. Warming, with a pleasant, very mild bitterness like from a well roasted coffee. Again, those rich, red fruits are there, with the Christmas cake and its army of sweet baking spices backing things up, and while I didn’t pick up a lot of the medicinal notes I got on the nose, the salinity is still very much there. In the back there ‘s this note of old, dry wood.
The finish is satisfyingly long, rich and spicy-sweet with notes of clove and baking spices ending in a sweet smoke echo.
I know Jim was a bit in two minds about it, but I enjoyed this. A lot, even. I’ve nurtured the sample over 3 nights, always with a warmed up palate, and not once did it fall short. The nose really sets the bar, and while it’s not unusual to see the palate not living up to expectations, in this case it more than delivered in my opinion. A big, powerful whisky, but rather than acting like a bull in a china shop, it’s also very benign. The BFG of whiskies? In any case, this is quality stuff!
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