Ballechin 10yo

After 8 inaugural batches, Ballechin, the heavily peated highlander born at the small Perthshire based Edradour distillery comes of age. With its first regular release in the summer of 2014, Edradour means business and it wants to carve out a section of the ultra-peated niche market for itself.

Description: burnished gold in colour, thick legs in the glass, peated at 50ppm(!), matured ex-bourbon, bottled at 46% ABV.

Nose: notes of dark earthy peat, with scents of scorched wood and thick coal smoke rising from within. Topped of with an aroma of malted barley and linseed.

Mouth: a dry and oily body, with a bouquet of peat and ash with grassier notes of hay.Some fruity notes slumbering in the background (Mirabelle syrup?)

Finish: an earthy drying finish, with soft citrussy notes lingering in the backdrop, but far from predominant

Verdict: Good stuff: full of flavor and quite robust, whilst not overly complex it can deliver quite a blow. Though it still can’t compete with the giants from Islay, it could well outclass some of their retarded NAS offspring in a one on one fight. I imagine this is how highland whisky would taste like in the olden days of illicite distillers: Rough, untamed, strongly peated young whisky.

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