Black Bottle is a blended scotch comprised of (according to the website) “seven of the island [Islay]‘s classic malts alongside some of the finest grain available.” Since Islay only has eight active distilleries (Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Bowmore, Caol Ila, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, and the too-recently-opened Kilchoman) and it’s unlikely to contain any of the very rare and sought-after closed distilleries (Malt Mill, Port Ellen), I think we can safely say what’s in it. In fact, before Kilchoman opened, Black Bottle’s marketing verbage proudly proclaimed the inclusion of product from “all of Islay’s single malt distilleries”. The Black Bottle brand is now owned by Burn Stewart Distillers Ltd., which also owns Bunnahabhain, so it’s also a safe bet that a lot of that distillery’s malt makes it into the blend.

Black Bottle tends to win a lot of awards and has quite a following, even among malt-heads. Oh, here’s the kicker: this guy’s only about $20 a bottle in the US.

Nose: Tarry, earthy overtones, with a smoky barbeque sauce-like sweetness. Oh God, now I can’t smell anything but barbeque sauce! The alcohol tickle is piquant – despite the baseline 40% ABV, this crawls right up your nose. Undercurrents of chewing tobacco and mulching leaves.

Palate: Nice creamy mouthfeel. Green and vegetal up front, then some salted caramels and finally a burst of woodsmoke. Very tame on the tongue. Really, it’s very orderly for something that’s all Islay.

Finish: Only of medium length, despite all the peat. Sweet, burnt sugar, freshly-dug earth. Very mild bitterness in the back on the tongue. Remains sweet and smoky through the fade-out. Pleasant.

With Water: Several drops of water yield processed white sugar in the nose, but kill the smoke. Mouthfeel is not compromised, but the finish is more grassy and bitter. This doesn’t need water – I wouldn’t bother.

Overall: I can see why this has a following. It’s peaty in all the right ways, has the thick, viscous mouthfeel that only a blend with good grain whisky has, and is the right price. At $20, this blows The Black Grouse, Finlaggan, and the mildly-peated Johnnie Walker Black Label out of the water, no contest. Really, a $20 peated blend and I can’t find anything bad to say about it.

Also, it’s worth pointing out that this bottle is a perfect choice for mixed drinks that call for a smoky note. While most of us wouldn’t dream of pouring Lagavulin 16 into a shaker, Black Bottle has both the price point and the level of quality necessary to be great in a cocktail.

I suppose if you were jaded enough, you could say this blend is on the tame side of the peat spectrum. Personally when I’m in the mood for peat I want the full, intense single-malt experience, so I’m not likely to stock a bottle of this… but if you’ve been frustrated in your efforts to find a value blend and enjoy peat, this is your bottle. Either way, I’m calling it a “Must Have” because you can’t find a better peated blend – or almost any blend, for that matter – for this price.

Nose: Lot of vanilla. Light brown sugar. Cereal. Very mild peat – this is Ardbeg?

Palate: Sharp, piquant peat. Vanilla & caramel. Hefty burn. Some wooksmoke (fruit wood – like applewood chips smoking). A little lime juice on the tail end.

Finish: Not too bitter. Peat shows through (finally) on finish.

With Water: Becomes very perfumey, like a room full of vanilla beans drying.

Overall: Lots of vanilla. Easy drinking, for an Ardbeg, but not much else to recommend it. I was 100% unable to identify the marsala. This is a particularly sweet, aromatic whisky with a very muted peat profile. If someone handed me a glass, I can honestly say I would enjoy drinking it. Alas, the total mistranslation of the marsala cask (I would have said this was 100% ex-bourbon), and the special-edition hoopla seriously undermined the experience for me. I would say this whisky is not worth the (exceptional) effort required to secure a bottle. (Although K&L still has some in stock for $95, while it lasts.) My low rating shouldn’t be taken as a denouncement of the flavor or quality of this whisky – but as a statement on the value for the money. A self-conscious $50 pricetag would have warranted a Recommended score.

ScotchNoob™ Mark:

About The Distillery

East of Lagavulin and Laphroaig on the southern coast of Islay, Ardbeg is known for being among the most heavily-peated single malts made. Their Uigeadail and Supernova (>100 ppm) bottlings push the envelope on palatable levels of peat (measured in Phenol parts-per-million, or ppm). Ardbeg’s water travels a long journey, first from Loch Uigeadail, which is the highest loch (~250m) in the quartzite hills of Islay. The water flows over hard quartzite, via the Ardilistry River, into the man-made Loch Iarnan. Finally, the soft water flows over heavy peat bogs to the distillery via the Ardbeg Burn. Like most [all?] of the other Islay distilleries, its malted barley comes, by specification, from the maltings at Port Ellen. Ardbeg used to have its own kiln-fired maltings, which were unusual due to a lack of a fan in the roof. This caused a heavy, tar-like influence of the peat smoke, which added to the inherent peat character in the Islay water. The maltings was closed in 1977, so Ardbegs casked before the late 1970s should still exhibit that old characteristic tar and smoke.

Color: Very light straw.

Nose: The first impression is of unmistakably Islay peat and white chocolate. Faint florals -lavender?- twine with the lemony, slightly acidic peat. Not particularly smoky or earthy, but ethereal and vegetal. Like a pile of freshly-mown hay and flowers just starting to smoulder. The heat of its 46% ABV is detectable, but not offensive. Decidedly subtle, for a fully peated malt. After a rest in the glass, I can detect juicy peach, which might come from the ever-so-brief sherry finish.

Palate: Thin body. Lemon in waves upfront, with a background of vanilla frosting. After the slight (very slight!) burn subsides, there are ample waves of grain (hehehe), a faint layer of fresh strawberries and fruit punch, and a continuous high note of (hay) peat.

Finish: Long. Somehow avoids being bitter, despite all the phenol. A moment of lavender honey, followed by dry bark, lemon peel oil, and spent charcoal.

With Water: A few drops of water cause the peat to begin smoking. Tobacco, freshly-squeezed lemon juice, and crushed mint. The palate is much sweeter, with crumbly snickerdoodle cookies, vanilla extract, and banana cream pie. This malt is undeniably improved by the addition of water!

Overall: Subtle and accomplished, if light. The peat is masterfully understated, and plays beautifully with the naturally sweet lemon, honey, and floral elements. Don’t let the ‘light’ moniker distract from the fact that this is very highly peated malt, with far more subtlety than, say, Laphroaig, but a lot more power and sinus-burning peat than Highland Park. It does very much stand alone among the Islay malts, though, being light and playful, but also masterful and persuasive. Very impressive for a malt with an average age significantly under 5 years. I’ve made this a “Must Have” whisky for peat-lovers: you can’t miss the revolution in Islay whiskies, and now you don’t have to pay charity prices for it!

For what it’s worth, K&L’s 5 year-old sherry cask is a different animal entirely. At cask-strength and with a pungent, resinous personality, it’s some big whisky. Candle wax, burning balsamic reduction, dried cranberries and smoggy, industrially earthy peat. It tastes somewhat like elegant, masterful cask-strength Islay peated malt stored in a volatile sherry cask – somehow dark, resinous and fungal, and also acidic and brightly fruity. In places, the sherry overwhelms the peat. This is definitely not mainstream whisky, and its internal contradictions take some analysis to appreciate. For fun, I splashed a bit into my glass of Machir Bay and was rewarded with an elevated level of fruitiness that played very nicely with the peat. There’s a whisky cocktail for you – 3 parts Kilchoman Machir Bay to 1 part K&L Sherry Cask Kilchoman, neat. Too bad K&L’s cask runs $110 a bottle. Too rich for my blood, in more ways than one!

ScotchNoob™ Mark:

About The Distillery

Kilchoman is the first new distillery on Islay in 124 years. Construction finished in 2005 and the distillery began producing spirit for an Islay-craving world. Unfortunately as is the case with any Scotch distillery, that whisky won’t be able to compete with its peers until it has aged sufficiently. In order to stay in business, Kilchoman began producing very young “preview” bottlings to attract interest, showcase distillery potential, and raise funds. The first, in 2009, was aged 3 years and 3 months. Producing only 100,000 liters annually, the small distillery is attempting to stick to its “craft” roots – growing barley on its own farm (the upcoming “100% Islay” release will contain whisky made exclusively from this barley), using its own floor maltings, and eschewing chill-filtration and the addition of coloring agents. Kilchoman promises to be one of the best craft single malt Scotches when it reaches a competitive age.

After the usual 16 years in primarily American oak casks, the Lagavulin malt destined for Distiller’s Edition spends some additional time (somewhere between 6 months and 2 years, varying every year) in Pedro Ximenez (PX) sherry butts, each containing around 300 liters of spirit. The bottle I sampled at K&L was distilled in 1995.

Nose: Raisin up front, with a mild background of peat. Dried fruits, fruitwood smoke. Black currants. Green sap, with a hint of banana?

Palate: Clearly sherried, with lots of concentrated dark fruits, but now the peat I was missing in the nose comes through with nice balance. Smooth!

Finish: Overly sweet, with the usual cast of sherry characters. The peat gets somewhat lost.

With Water: A drop of water reveals a sulfury reek of banana peel, which dissipates, but not before I resolve to avoid the water with this one.

Overall: Okay. Yeah, it’s aged in PX sherry, which is a big deal, but… this particular expression falls short with me. The palate has a nice balance of fruit and smoke, but the sherry overwhelms the traditional Lagavulin character (which I would have said was hard to do) on the nose and finish. Also, despite the extra time in barrel, there’s not a lot of wood character. I’d stick to the 16, and get my sherry kick elsewhere. I’ll probably get some flack for this one, since lots of people love it. I’m a big fan of Lagavulin, but this DE just didn’t resonate with me.

Steve buys the malted barley from the maltings at Port Ellen, a Diageo facility, as does just about every other distillery on Islay. That means he’s distilling with the same malt that goes into Lagavulin, Laphroaig, and others. Widmer Brothers, a Portland microbrewery, makes his wash, and he distills it on his tiny German eau-de-vie copper stills. The distillate goes into large 400-liter barrels made from air-dried Oregon white ‘scrub’ oak. The first year is spent in old, oft-reused barrels. It is then racked into slightly newer barrels for the second year, and then spends the final year in brand-new oak. It’s not quite a solera process, but it does the job: oaky, but not too woody. It’s bottled at 46% ABV.

Nose: Meaty and full of peat – a blast of it, in fact. A campfire of burning pine needles, with an interesting depth of nuances. No iodine or fishiness, just sappy, resiny peat, mild oak, and an undercurrent of mildly sweet barley. Smells like an 8 or 10 year-old Caol Ila or Bowmore, with a little more ppm.

Palate: Soft and warming. Lots of nice malty sugar. Rice candy. Peat is not intense, and the smoothness on the palate belies its youth. Tastes well-crafted.

Finish: Pine and peat pervade, but the youth shows with evaporating raw alcohol and a vein of oaky bitterness. Lingers like most Islays.

Overall: Amazing that a three year-old whisky distilled on a tiny brandy still in Oregon can smell and taste like an 8 or 10 year-old Islay single malt scotch. Sure, the imported barley has a lot to do with that, but Steve McCarthy’s attention to detail, careful (and economical) use of oak, and small slowly-running stills all come through in the product, which somehow tastes handcrafted. I could wish it had a few more years in barrel to smooth out the wrinkles and improve that finish, but this is clearly an excellent product from a master distillery. You are still paying the ‘craft’ premium here: $50 is a lot for three years of aging, but if you’re looking to see what the ‘craft’ revolution is all about, this is a great place to start.

A word on craft pricing: These are slightly murky waters. Does it make sense to pay more for one company’s product simply because the nature of that company’s business model makes their whiskey more expensive to produce? Where’s the balance between pricing driven by costs-and-margins and pricing driven by competition? I was (and still am) skeptical about paying new Islay distillery Kilchoman’s prices for what was essentially really tasty new-make. McCarthy’s, similarly, is produced slowly in small quantities to exacting standards. It uses imported barley (not cheap), contracted wash (not cheap), custom-made barrels (not cheap), and is necessarily a niche product that cannot achieve efficiency via economies of scale in either production or distribution. Here’s the rub: it has to taste better than the factory-produced, lower-priced competition. If I make one bottle a day of hand-crafted dragonfruit eau-de-vie on a solid gold 20-gallon pot still and age it in 5-liter barrels made from solid mahogany… I shouldn’t expect to make up my costs by charging $2000 a bottle unless it tastes like $2000 a bottle. McCarthy’s, at least, tastes worth it. For all those other craft distillates out there – I say they have to pass the same test.

So why does Diageo set the price so high? My guess is “because they can”. It’s a cask-strength special-edition bottling with a limited run. According to Mr. Beal, the extra effort and cost associated with doing small-run bottlings like this justifies the price. I doubt it justifies the extra $30, but there you are.

Nose: Full strength wood smoke. Campfire. Nice undercurrent of cereal. Hay. Lighter than expected, without much brine. Refined. Some nice buttered toast!

Palate: Clean fire. Smoky as all get-out. Not much wood, but a little smoked fish.

Finish: Sweet finally. Nice oatmeal, covered by a thick layer of smoke. Finishes with sea salt. No bitterness.

Water: Reveals… banana? on the nose, which dissipates quickly. Campfire notes are subdued. The water adds in banana taffy, and a rummy kind of cane sugar in the nose. Perks up the palate.

Overall: The 12 has a clearer, cleaner flavor than Lagavulin 16, more bright and more powerful – lean and stripped-down. It shows Islay peat, pure and without excess wood or the sweetness inherent in the use of European oak. I think buying Lagavulin 12 is like spending top dollar for scratchy bootleg live recordings of a favorite artist. It’s an interesting case study in the variations present in the whisky due to changes in maturation (less age – thus less oak – and no sherry), but only Lagavulin devotees should consider paying the premium for the experience.

Sometimes, however, even the most carefully-made whisky goes awry. Recently, a shop-exclusive bottling of a cask-strength Bruichladdich chenin blanc finish, imported by a certain *cough* local store, dismayed its retailers and purchasers alike by turning sour… in the bottle. The spirit buyer had tasted the barrel sample when picking the cask and sampled it again several times when the beautifully-packaged bottles arrived. It wasn’t until the first pre-orders were filled and customers began drinking the contents did it become clear that the whisky was tainted somehow. It wasn’t just a few of them, either. Every last one was nigh undrinkable, including the bottle that the spirit buyer had already opened and which had tasted fine previously. Like a time bomb, set to explode after nine years of aging in ex-bourbon, seven months in ex-chenin blanc barrels, and six-odd months of bottling, packaging, shipping, and stocking, it just fell apart in the bottle.

As curious as I was when I heard about Loch Dhu, I had to experience this train wreck for myself. Luckily, I got a sample of the recalled spirit. Here’s a “tasting note”, although it won’t do anybody much good:

Nose: At first, there is freshly-squeezed lime, kiwi, and acidic fruit. Suddenly, a waft of acetone crawls up the nose. This is 59.8% ABV, after all, so I continue. The acetone becomes more and more gluey, becoming unmistakably like the rubber cement I remember from my elementary school days. Weird. Underneath the industrial sealant smell, there is a nice undercurrent of green grapes, honey, and unripe green plums.

Palate: What the…? The mouthfeel is gentle at first, with almost no sign of the 59.8% ABV punch I was prepared for. After several seconds, the alcohol burn appears, and grows, until my tongue is truly on fire. This is… *backwards*! Alongside the reversed alcohol burn, there is a great deal of acidic fruit, almonds, green grass, and a mouth-puckering dose of grape skin tannin. It actually makes my teeth itch.

Finish: Evolving again, the finish begins sweet, like muscat grapes, and then goes sour, with elements of white wine vinegar, glue, and grappa. The finish is actually quite short.

Overall: What a strange whisky. It almost does tricks, first inverting the natural order of things by growing more alcoholic on the tongue, then shifting flavor profiles (between sweet, sour, and industrial) several times on the finish. One can almost tell that this used to be a beautiful, fascinating whisky with clear French wine influences, until something went horribly, horribly wrong.

Check out a similar experience here: Scotch and Ice Cream, where poor unfortunate soul Tim paid for a bottle. (Hope you got your refund, Tim!). It should be noted that the fault for this lies somehow in nature, not with the retailer, nor with Bruichladdich. The retailer quickly recalled and exchanged all bottles from this cask with something else.

So what happened? The cork doesn’t smell rancid or mouldy (It just smells like the whisky). The bottles apparently all went sour at the same time, so it’s unlikely to be caused by individual mistakes in bottling or sealing. They were only bottled 7 months ago, so it’s unlikely that enough of it could have oxidized, even if every single bottle had a broken seal. The only likely explanation is that some chemical compound, formed by the very slow interaction of chenin blanc, oak, and Islay whisky and catalyzed either by the turbulence of shipping or the introduction of air into the freshly-opened bottles, transformed this beauty into a beast. Pity, that, but it goes to show that even something as frozen in time as bottled whisky is still a living thing with a spirit all its own.

The product itself has been discontinued due to a lack of malt availability. Sometimes blended malts like this depend on found single-barrels that cannot be easily replaced or replicated once they run dry. I doubt there’s a lot of recharred Clynelish floating around. In this case, John Glaser of Compass Box was looking for a way to make a smoky, peaty blend which lacked the “fireplace” aftertaste often associated with the heavier Islays. He wanted an easy-drinking peated malt. To achieve this, he blended a refill Caol Ila (one of the lightest Islays, likely made even lighter by the refill barrel) with a refill Clynelish (a partially-sherried Highlander with mild waxy notes), and a little bit of Clynelish from a re-charred barrel. The latter was probably included to up the wood character which would have been missing from the refill casks.

The result was released at craft presentation (46% ABV, no color added, no chill-filtering) for around $50 a bottle. You might still find a few dusty bottles of this floating around in bargain bins or in collections. You could probably also find the miniatures somewhere, as there seems to have been some kind of major campaign to distribute them widely to liquor stores.

(Note: Initially there is little nose – let it breathe a few minutes after pouring).

Nose: The Caol Ila is right there up front – smoked paprika, maple bacon fat, and smouldering hay. Behind it lurks some orange blossom honey and a hint of floral notes – elderflower? A few drops of water amps up the florals, but also increases the nose tickle.

Palate: Medium body, with big peat in the lead. Muddy and woody at first, but quickly yielding to the sweeter malt notes, which blend well with the peat. There’s nothing subtle here – wood char, salty peat, and malty sweetness. These overshadow anything more delicate that might have been present in the original malts. A few drops of water seems to meld the flavors a bit better – and also brings out a little tangerine and lemon peel.

Finish: Medium-long. A bit salty – the peat has become a little astringent and the oak turned mildly bitter. I wish for some of the highland malt notes here, but unfortunately they’re gone. It leaves me with a hint of nuttiness. With water, there is a lot of citrus on the finish, balancing the bitter notes much better.

Overall: I’m not sure I would call this “easy drinking”, and I don’t think I would buy a bottle (if it were still available!). John did manage to achieve part of his goal: a big, peaty Caol Ila with a powerfully sweet highlander to give it some background. The peat isn’t off-putting, but it doesn’t allow for much elegance to come through. The best part is the nose, which deftly combines the best attributes of those two malts. If you do come across a dram, try it with a little water.

For me, this begs a question: what exactly are you paying for when you buy such a product as this? You aren’t told the distillery from which it came, nor (usually) the age. You’re asked to trust in the “brand”, which is really nothing more than a careful selection of barrels which approximate the same style – usually a style that deviates from the distillery norm. If we guess that Smokehead, for example, is young Ardbeg, and that the barrels were not kept for use by the distillery due to their milder peat ppm or divergent notes of pine sap, fish sauce, and mint, then we are allowing Smokehead to establish its brand on that flavor profile. A consumer’s reason for buying such a product, then, must be either a preference for those flavors over the distillery standard, or the desire to pay a lower price. Or, perhaps, a clever marketing campaign that hoodwinks consumers into believing that Smokehead is better at picking Ardbeg barrels than Ardbeg is.

For me, the only reason that compels me to buy products like this is price. In fact, I do often keep a bottle of Finlaggan on hand, due to its absurdly low price. I’m willing to accept slightly sub-par barrels of unknown Islay whisky in exchange for a bargain price. Smokehead, on the other hand, is $53 a bottle. Is it good enough to command such a price?

Nose: Dark, musty grimy smoke. Oily. Some suggestion of pine sap. Warm charcoal notes and a tiny bit of dark chocolate.

Palate: Heavy barrel char and oaky resin to the point of being woody. Smoke comes in with barbeque sauce, Thai fish sauce, and hickory.

Finish: A hint of mint, but only of medium length (surprising for an Islay). Not particularly bitter, which is nice, but fades with a lot of woodiness.

Overall: A mediocre dram when compared with similar young Islays. There is some nice dark musty peat, but it’s not as intense as most Islay fans would like. My best guess is that this is a 6 year-old Ardbeg from a heavily charred ex-bourbon barrel, but not an excellent one. Someone suggested it might be Lagavulin. If so, it would have to be older – 9 years? – to account for those dark musty notes. However, I just don’t find that Lagavulin sweet-smoke balance here. Would I buy a 6 year-old Ardbeg distillery bottling for $53? No, and I wouldn’t buy this either.

Bowmore’s whisky is certainly peated and unmistakably Islay. However, its notes tend towards smoke and lighter sugars instead of vegetal peat and seaweed. Its water traverses a 19-kilometer journey over all of the faces of Islay, starting in limestone and sandstone hills on the east coast, and then flowing over heather in the hills and peat in the bogs alike. Bowmore’s warehouse is located on the shores of stormy Loch Indaal rather than the Atlantic Ocean, and 40% of its barley is malted on-site. All of these factors combine to yield a well-balanced, not peat-dominated, flavor profile. If peat explosions like Ardbeg are not your thing, try a Bowmore.

Nose: Concentrated smoke, hay, coal dust, cayenne pepper, buttercream frosting.

Palate: Silky smooth and heavy bodied. Malty sweetness upfront, developing into smouldering hay bales, caramel, and white sugar. The peat is well-integrated and refined – not “in your face”, but still clearly Islay in character.

Finish: Long, with typical Islay smoke and slightly bitter charred wood.

Overall: The thickness of the mouthfeel is excellent, and the peat smoke notes are refined and well-rounded. Other notes are too subtle to detect on a first try, but further exploration is warranted. Don’t add any water – it ruins the thick mouthfeel and reveals only a small amount of lemon and floral aroma. I have resolved to look deeper into Bowmore’s product line.

ScotchNoob™ Mark:

About The Distillery

Despite its location on the banks of Loch Indaal in central Islay, Bowmore’s water is derived from the river Laggan, the source of which rises from the hills on the east coast of the island, overlooking the Sound of Islay. The water is diverted from the river and forms The Bowmore Lade. This water is notable for its cross-island trip, picking up heather in the hills, minerals from the sandstone and limestone rocks from which it rises, and peat from the lowland bogs on its trip to the distillery. This yields a light and subtle spirit with a balance of mineral and vegetal. Bowmore still malts 40% of its own barley in its floor maltings. The malt is peated for less time than the more intense malts from the southern Islay distilleries, which contributes to its reputation as a ‘tamer’ cousin, and reputably more ‘smoky’ than peaty.