Black Gate BG068 Australian Peated Single Malt

This review was originally posted here in a general listing for Black Gate whisky on 19 January 2020. I’ve moved it to this listing for the specific expression for reasons that will be obvious. Australian Single Malt Whisky Tasting (Part 1), The Oak Barrel, Sydney 16 January 2020, Whisky #6 Nose: Highly phenolic peat smoke, lemon oil, bacon fat and a faint hint of fruity caramel in the background. Palate: Sweet smoke, red berries and stone fruit (golden peach and apricot) on the arrival. The development veers more towards sweet citrus (tangerine and lemon) and the smoke evolves into a meaty barbecue quality. The texture is oily and full. Finish: Medium/long. The fruit flavours subside and the aftertaste is lingering sweet smoke. This is a robust, heavily peated, single-cask, cask-strength single malt of great character. There is no heat at all from the high alcohol content and it is delicious neat. It can, however, take as much water as you wish to throw into it and suffers no ill effects, simply expanding and softening as it dilutes. Black Gate is one of the world’s smallest whisky distilleries. Founded by husband and wife team Brian and Genise Hollingworth in 2009 in a region of country NSW that experiences extreme temperature variations, from below freezing to 40 degrees Celsius in the summer. They produce about 4,000 litres of spirit annually from their two small direct-fired pot stills. Initially the distillery produced rum and unpeated single malt whisky but since 2016 the focus has been on heavily peated single malt. This particular bottling was distilled in April 2017, matured in a re-coopered ex-port cask (distillery cask BG068) bottled in December 2019. The peated malt for the expression was sourced from Smiths in Scotland. Every bottling from Black Gate is a batch expression, usually from a single-cask, and there is a constant distillery signature of heavily textured depth and richness. However there is also great variation between batches depending on the type of cask used, and every expression really should be listed separately. Highly recommended, and probably the best heavily peated Australian single malt I’ve tasted. It has a profile that lies somewhere between Laphroaig Lore and Glendronach 18 year old, but it is really its own thing. “Very Good” : 86/100 (4 stars)