Battery Point Islay Cask (Batch #2)

Battery Point Distillery tasting, Hobart, Monday August 10th 2024, Whisky #3 Nose: Light ale and cereal, thinned malt extract. When nosed neat there was hardly any smoke at all but after a dash of water the smoke greatly amplified. Palate: Dry arrival of nut toffee turning sweeter with maple sugar and honey highlights and a hint of vanilla. The smoke presence is stronger on the palate than the nose, both when taken neat and once reduced, and it also has both smoked ham and resinous qualities. The texture is oily, and becomes creamy with water. Finish: Medium/Short. Nougat and smoke. This peated whisky was not made from peated barley. Instead the distillery matured their unpeated spirit in a range of casks, including one from Laphroaig and one from Lagavulin (second fill ex-bourbon casks in both cases, I believe). The spirit also spent some time in second-fill port and sherry casks which the distillery said was done for “balance”, but I would have liked to taste it without these wine influences. We tasted from bottle #77 of the second batch that has been made (371 bottles in all). I’m not sure whether this batch was the second time the same peated casks were used or if a second set of peated casks was employed. I was not impressed at first nosing as there seemed to be little presence, but a dash of water really lifted the profile and brought the spirit to life. That’s not unusual with cask-strength whisky but in this case it was very pronounced. I'm also not sure why the distillery did not use a peated wash for this as they have made peated runs, but I'm guessing that they are conducting parallel experiments in peated whisky creation. The whisky made from their own peated spirit is not ready yet but I'd be very interested to try it and see how it differed from this peated cask expression. “Good” : 83/100 (3.5 stars)