Monday, October 08, 2007

Malt Mission 2007 #171


Bruichladdich "Full Stength" 1989, 13yo
Islay Single Malt Whisky
57.1% abv

£40


Thirty drops until Malt Mission #200 and I looking at what is lined up on my shelf, I am excited taste my way to that landmark. Then I'll get Morgan Spurlock's team of doctors to check me out. Thanks for reading! We'll start the 30-dram countdown with a cask strength-themed week.

Bruichladdich is one of the twenty Scottish distilleries owned by one of the fifteen independent distilling companies. In the hands of its current owners, the distillery is on the cutting edge of innovation with a seemingly never-ending line of limited releases of varied expressions, wine finishes, filling strengths, different strains of barley and peat levels. The distillery is set in a lovely location on Loch Indaal on Islay and a favorite of whisky tourists.

In the most recent edition of her incredible book "The Scottish Whisky Distilleries", Misako Udo tells us that when Bruichladdich's Managing Director Mark Reynier received an email asking him to fix one of the web cams operating at the distillery, it came to the distiller's attention that the US Threat Reduction Agency had been monitoring them. The watchdog believed that the production of chemical weapons was one small step away from distilling whisky and the new owners' strange techniques and experiments caught their suspicion.

There has been a second edition of the Full Strength series. This is the first. All Bruichladdichs had on the mission can be read HERE.

TASTING NOTES:

Energetic and compact. Mustiness deep in the stacks at a library, immense honey and zest of lemons, some pepper and an array of tree fruits: apples, nectarines, plums.

Irish Cream ice cream, melted honey in weak tea, a buttery element, too. Warm effects, but kept lively with fresh fruit (lemon and melon) impressions as well. The finish brings a welcome simplification of flavours with oak and a touch of marzipan slowly fading.

SUMMARY:

The nose exposes the high abv%, but the taste is gentle and warming but quite a concentrated spirit; not too complex but clean and well constructed with many pleasant flavours to be enjoyed sip after sip.

Malt Mission #170
Malt Mission #172
Malt Mission #173
Malt Mission #174
Malt Mission #175

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