Inbox / The Week's Whisky News (February 17, 2023)

Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. It was created as we cannot write full articles or do justice to every piece received. It features items from around the world of whisky and is published by us each Friday. Within Inbox we aim to write a few lines detailing each press release/piece of news/PR event that we have received and provide links, where possible, for you to find out further information. 

Review - The Feis Ile 2017 bottlings

For the last week, I have had the pleasure of being on Islay for my first taste of the annual Feis Ile festival. The festival is a celebration of the island's culture and music, but most importantly its whisky. Whisky is engrained in to Islay life and its distilleries are known the world over, mostly for their unique smoky and peaty flavours.

Every year at the festival each of the Islay's eight single malt distilleries have an open day. Part of this involves releasing a special limited edition bottling that are only available to those attending the distilleries during the festival.Demand is normally very high and sees whisky fans queuing up at distillery gates in the early hours of each morning to make sure they secure a bottle.

Have just tried ... Bruichladdich 'Rocks'

Bruichladdich (pronounced brook-laddie) is one of Scotland's most innovative distilleries. Based on the island of Islay, it is one of very few independently owned Scottish distilleries and since being taken over by a millionaire entrepreneur in 2000 has been very experimental with it's whisky production and release programme. Bruichladdich's distillery style is quite light and fresh with no smoky flavours or aromas, which contrasts to the majority of other whisky produced on Islay. However, they do also release smoky whiskies under the Port Charlotte name and they are currently in the process of renovating the old Port Charlotte distillery on Islay, which closed during the late 1920s. They also have experimented by distilling their spirit three or four times and are well known for putting whisky into non traditional wine and dessert wine casks. The results are mixed but I like Bruichladdich's experimentation as they are trying to introduce new people to whisky, which can only be a good thing. However, many whisky purists do not like this approach, believing that whisky should be matured in the traditional casks of bourbon, sherry and refill whisky. Bruichladdich's range is extensive and they are always updating it with new releases. This one is from a couple of years ago and has been matured in one of those un-traditional wine casks (a full bodied red wine called Banyuls from the south of France).

The first thing that I notice is the colour. It is very different for a whisky, having a pink tint reminiscent of rose wine. For this reason it was marketed to attract women to try and drink whisky. The nose has quite a lot of wine influence in it, with fresh red berries and grapes prominent. There is also a sweet tinge to the nose. On the palate, this whisky is very smooth and easy to drink with those rich red berries and grapes combating some tannic dryness that has come from the wooden wine casks. The finish is slightly short and starts off being smooth yet switches to be quite bitter (the tannins again, I guess) and some raw spirit coming through (indicating the whisky is young). Overall, this was quite pleasant easy drinking whisky, although the wine cask did give it a weird edge. It is unlike any other whisky I have tasted to date. If you can still find a bottle anywhere, then it is worth buying as it should only be around £20-25.

Have just tried ... Port Charlotte 2002 'Royal Mile Whiskies exclusive'

Port Charlotte is not actually a distillery. There used to be a distillery on the island of Islay called Port Charlotte, however this closed in the 1920s. Now another Islay distillery, Bruichladdich, have brought the old buildings and are renovating them so that production can start once again in 2009. Currently, only the malting house is in operation and it is here that the barley used in this whisky was malted. Bruichladdich are releasing limited editions of heavily peated whiskies under this Port Charlotte name. This one is a very limited release of 439 bottles. The owner of Royal Mile Whiskies, Keir Sword, purchased one cask and has chosen to bottle it now after five and a half years of maturation. There have only been three previous releases of the new Port Charlotte spirit since reopening. Two have been released by Bruichladdich (named PC5 and PC6) and one by an independent bottling company.

The colour is very pale, like straw and the nose blows you away. It is packed with heavy smokiness (imagine a bonfire), damp moss, vanilla and something vegetal (reminded me of fresh leaves). On the palate, the smoke is very full on and quite overpowering but there are other flavours coming through. There is sweetness mixed with a spiciness (like cracked black pepper) and a distinct salty character. The finish is quite long with that smokiness and saltiness hanging around for a decent time. This is very good and smooth considering it is a very young whisky. To be honest, I found the smokiness a bit overpowering but once you got beyond that there were some other very interesting characteristics. This whisky can only be bought at Royal Mile Whiskies and retails for £29.99.