Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie Islay SIngle Malt Review

Bruichladdich date back to 1881 and like many Scottish distilleries, theirs is a story of boom to bust to boom and so on.

Their most recent resurgence started in the year 2000 when Murray McDavid bought the distillery and restarted production in 2001 with the first distillation of Port Charlotte spirit.

Bruichladdich are an outlier in Islay whiskey, alongside Bunnahabhain, in that the vast majority of the whisky they make is unpeated. Of course they do dabble in peated whiskies, they have a heavily peated series under the Port Charlotte moniker with the whiskies peated to around 40 ppm.

The comes Octomore, their ultra heavily peated whiskies that are often well over 100 ppm for phenol content.

Outside of that Bruichladdich are well known for producing whisky with 100% islay barley, using heritage barley like Bere barley, organic and biodynamic barley and their liberal use of wine casks.

Today though we are looking at the classic Bruichladdich style…the Classic Laddie.

One cool thing here is that each batch has a specific 5 digit code that you can check out on their website to see how your batch was constructed.

My bottle is 22/003. It has organic and non organic scottsh barley with 27 of the casks laid down in 2014. Maturation wise there is 1st & 2nd fill bourbon, 1st & 2nd fill Cabernet Sauvignon hogsheads, Sherry butts, Amarone hogsheads, Pomerol hogsheads and Bordeaux casks.

Lots going on, let’s see how it comes together.

Bruichladdich Classic Laddie 50% abv / 100 proof                                                     

$50/£37/€43

100% Scottish Barley – Natural Colour – Non Chill Filtered

Nose: Malt, candyfloss, pencil shavings and wet sand. Vanilla cream, intense pear and apple notes. Crème fraiche and lime zest. Time brings peach melba and strawberries too.

Water brings out honeysuckle, sauternes wine and salted butter.

Palate: Malt driven with graham crackers, honey and malt loaf. Fruit salad sweets, vanilla, apple and pear again segueing into a little alcohol heat, clove, pepper and maritime saltiness. Canned peaches and grapefruit. 

Water brings out some taffy, radicchio herbal bitterness and toasted oak.

Finish: Medium length with vanilla, pear, lemon oil and sea spray.

Score: 6 out of 10

Overall: A solid entry into the world of Bruichladdich and Islay malts, especially if you do not like peated whisky. It’s easy drinking but the nose out performs the palate that does come across a little hot and youthful.

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