Octomore 14.4

On the 4th of November 2022 I poured my 100th Distiller Whisky Taste, Port Charlotte CC:01, one hundred tastes later on the 1st of June 2023 I poured number 200, Bruichladdich Black Art 10.1 29. It seems I’m slowing down rapidly at this whisky business but none the less tonight, number 300 is being celebrated with Octomore 14.4. I think 14.3 is going to be hard to beat, maybe my trend of 5/5 for ‘100’ reviews will be lost here. I don’t know, I type as I taste. N: Kill me now. I am not religious, but holy f***. Butter! Vanilla (of the most French like variety), richly warmed by an embrace of delicate peat laden with bright and airy citrus and sweet-sticky BBQ burnt ends. This is summer, winter, spring, and autumn rolled into a single buttery moment. The peat here is dry, but joined by a sweetly tropical and deeply oaky and maybe even waxy component that balances everything expertly. I’m thirty minutes in, haven’t tasted a drop yet, and custard, pear and peach have all joined us. P: Seriously, kill me. End it all. This is an explosion of simple excellence. Laden with warm, soft, pillowy barley and run through with silky pear. The wood and smoke combine into black pepper, sugar puff cereal, and resin. Smoke is through it all, earthy and creamy in equal measure. This is sweet and savoury done properly. This is whisky. F: Just long enough to drown in. Sweet wood and barley, just enough iodine to keep things interesting, a little leather?, ashy slightly lemony brine. A single drop of water is all I could bring myself to add. Why would I risk more when neat was so very good? The nose is unchanged, the palate and finish just build on the warmth of the smoke and the buttery goodness of the mouthfeel. Wow. What a ride. Skip 14.2 sure, but line up 14.1, 14.3, and 14.4 and that is a progression worth something. 300 and I am bowing down yet again to the team at Bruichladich. I’ll say it again, holy f***. This is what whisky is meant to be about, it’s meant to be exciting, it’s meant to be an expression of craft and story telling. It is amazing that such a young liquid, partnered with such an atypical wood (Colombian Oak; wait, is there cocaine in this, I hear that’s moorish?!) can produce such a powerful and luxurious outcome. At 100 and 200 alike Bruichladdich had crafted an experience, at 8 years of age and 29 years of age they were established artists. This Octomore 14.1 is different. It’s the young disrupter, the prodigy. Not the masterful aged hand, but the young future master. A natural talent. If I had access to it, it would join the stash of three CC:01 on my darkest retirement shelf… Happy 300 - if you have been playing along at home, thanks for tuning in. The eight of you that read them - keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them I guess. The question now though; at 400 what 5/5 Bruichladdich should I be lining up?! Distiller whisky taste #300 [Pictured here with a pretty block of silvery-yellow marcasite and white quartz. Marcasite has the same chemical formula as pyrite but is structurally different (orthorhombic). Marcasite crystals of good quality are quite rare and lots of marcasite is quire reactive, breaking down to powder in air. So these doubly terminated coarse crystals from Peru are quite special, a bit like this whisky]. Bruichladdich running scores Classic Laddie: 4/5 Bruichladdich 18 re/define: 4.75/5 Black Art 10.1 29 y/o: 5/5 Port Charlotte 10: 4.5/5 Port Charlotte CC:01: 5/5 Octomore 14.1: 4/5 Octomore 14.2: 2.75/5 Octomore 14.3: 4.25/5 Octomore 14.4: 5/5

Octomore 14 Series Tasting, The Oak Barrel, Sydney, 21 February 2024. Whisky #6 Nose: A huge, expansive, buttery, floral (vanilla) nose with acres of warm, rich peat smoke hanging like black velvet drapes in the background. Lemon and orange peel, pineapple chunks grilled on a barbecue. The expressions we tasted before this elicited a feeling of “hmm, yes that’s nice” but this one instantly made me say out loud “oh yes! – that’s it!” Palate: Full, sweet cereal arrival. Malted milk, caramel sauce, soft peat smoke, apricots, peaches, sweet nectarines and plums. The texture is genuinely creamy and lip-smacking. Adding a little water expands the cereal qualities and develops flavours of popcorn and puffed wheat flakes. Finish: Long. Soft and sweet, trailing into an immense smoky blanket. This whisky has excellent persistence. This was without question my favourite whisky of the evening. Until we tried it, I had thought the 14.3 to be the best of this year’s releases, but this is in a whole different class. It is “big” in the same way a well matured fine Châteauneuf-du-Pape is “big”. It has authority and enormous presence but the distillate shines through with crystal clarity. The experiment with Colombian virgin oak casks has paid off in spades and I would love to try more examples of Octomore matured in such a manner. It did not require any water and is soft and drinkable neat (at 59.2%). Water does, however, release greater smoke and improves the already excellent texture, making it like fine satin. This is the closest thing I’ve tasted to the magisterial Octomore 10 year old 2nd Edition. It is only available directly from the distillery, but at £175.00 it is a steal. Bottles are still available and I would heartily recommend it to any Octomore or Port Charlotte enthusiast. It is very close to 5 stars. “Excellent” : 89/100 (4.75 stars)

Smoke and peat