Bruichladdich The Laddie Rye 7 Year Old

I host, every three months or so, a blind tasting with a group of fellow whisky enthusiasts here in Florida and so I’m always looking for something unusual or another brand the guys here may not be familiar with. So far I’ve introduced them to the Benromach 9 year old cask strength, Indri Trini and Boann Single Pot Still amongst others.

Anyway, while perusing my local Total Wine something caught my eye on the bottom shelf on one of the scotch shelving units….Bruichladdich, but specifically a 7 year old rye!

Now rye can be divisive. Corn is all about the buttered popcorn and corn syrup, wheat is all soft and bready, barley is the flavour profile king predominantly adding biscuity malt, nuttiness, orchard fruit and barley sugar. Rye though is a marmite grain. It’s unapologetically spicy and herbal but has an underlying fruitiness if you get past the spice. It is also a difficult grain to work with in fermentation.

While rye whisky is not unusual in and of itself, a Scotch rye is a thing of great scarcity. At present only three distilleries are using rye, Arbikie, Bruichladdich and InchDairnie. As there is nothing in the Scotch whisky technical file to define a scotch rye it has to be labelled as ‘single grain scotch whisky’. 

And yet Scotland has a history with rye. Alfred Barnard in 1887 picked out Port Dundas distillery as using great quantities of rye, indeed rye was being distilled up until the early 20th century in Scotland, especially in the patent stills. Rye also makes sense in Scotland, as well as Ireland, as it grows well in land that barley would not.

As someone who loves a good rye this Bruichladdich was too good to turn down (or was it?). 

The mash bill then is 55% Islay Rye from Coull Farm and 45% malted barley from 15 local farms, including again Coull Farm, all within an 11 mile radius of the distillery.

It has been matured in a combination of 1st fill bourbon barrels and first fill American virgin oak casks which includes regular ‘Virgin oak’ and ‘Crianza’ casks with the oak being toasted rather than charred.

There is a 2026 release that is 51% rye and 49% malted barley and is available via the Bruichladdich US webshop.

Bruichladdich Laddie Rye 7 Year Old 50% abv                                                $65/£49/€58

NC/NCF

Nose: Dill pickles, mint leaf, a combo of green tea & chamomile tea, crushed black pepper. Baking spices of cinnamon and clove. Toasted coconut, unripe melon, pear and some anise.

Water brings out burnt fudge, pine resin and coffee.

Palate: Dry and spicy on arrival. Pepper, clove and a little green jalapeno chilli. Cardamon, vanilla, honey drizzled pears. Herbal notes again of green tea, dill, eucalyptus and rosemary. Towards the end it becomes spirity and has a wood chip/cardboard note that is a little unsettling.

Water brings out more bitterness with wormwood, gentian and wood sap.

Finish: Short to medium with rye spice, herbal tincture and plenty of woodiness.

Score: 4 out of 10

Overall: I had such high hopes for this dram when I saw it sitting on the shelves of my local Total Wine. Surely, of all the Scottish distilleries, Bruichladdich could do a rye properly!

Of course it’s only my opinion, but this is a bit of a failure for me. The nose delivers everything you want in a rye but the palate and finish are a major let down. The palate ends up very bitter for me and the addition of water only strengthened that.

If Bruichladdich continue this experiment, I’d definitely buy another batch to see if it improves. But the issue, being based in the US, is that America does rye very, very well and really good bottles can be found at around half the price of this Bruichladdich.

More work required I’m afraid.

If you’d like to support my site and continued whiskey exploration there’s a ‘buy me a coffee’ link on the homepage menu bar. Thanks for reading and please check out my YouTube Channel too!