Port Charlotte 10 Year

Nose: Salted caramel brownie, flamed orange peel, a hearty whack of seaweed. Palate: Oak-y smoke and salty sea air, paired with sweeter notes of Custard Cream biscuits and white grape. Finish: Ginger snaps, rye toast, drying peat smokiness

It smells like smokey bacon with peat. The flavor is peat-forward, but is balanced with rich, sweet pork and notes of the sea. The peat is a dominant flavor, but balances the others in an appealing way. It's a lot like Lagavulin 16, but a bit less rich. Maybe Lagavulin 16 meets Oban 14? Some vanilla and mild citrus provide a nice and surprising balance. I find the minerals to make it a bit too much like grog, but I love jts depth and variety of flavor and especially appreciate that it reins in the sugary sweetness in favor of rich orange on the finish. The long finish is really good too. If you're looking for a balance between sweet and savory, this is it! And amazingly, it doesn't have any gross alcohol flavor (or whatever it does have is masked by the peat). It's kind of like Lagavulin 16 meets Ardbeg Corryvreckan in all of the right ways. It's rich, strong, and complex. There are lots of meaty elements but it isn't super sweet. It tastes much older than it actually is - I would have guessed closer to 18 years had the bottle not said 10. The flavors are terrifically balanced, though there might just be a tad too much iodine and alcohol. There are some herbal notes, but nothing too vegetal. Some saltiness is there too, giving it a bit of a taste of the sea. It's very interesting and very enjoyable. For the price, it's a steal. I might go so far as to call this the best deal in Scotch due to its awesome richness, balance, and complexity. There are tons (tons!) of much more expensive Scotches that are not on the same level. Smoke and iodine hit immediately, but there are also plenty of sweet, cereal, malty elements. It isn't meaty, but it is rich. The individual flavors stand out and it has a great deal of complexity. Nothing tastes off. This is a drink that is ready to go toe-to-toe with the best. Somehow. The rich red and citrus fruit provide sweetness that when mixed with a bit of honey marries magnificently with the smoke and iodine. The miracle of this drink is that despite the aggressive smoke and iodine it is beautifully balanced with not sharp notes napping it in the side or rough notes providing stocky bed. The flavor is super rich with tons of smoke and peat, but it also has plenty of maple and salt. There's a lot going on here and for Islay Scotch drinkers this is a paradise. The fruit comes out and so does the cereal. The richness is sublime and there is an impressive amount of depth here. All of the flavors are top-notch and the richness is amazing. On net, this is a supremely balanced whiskey with a lot of delightful flavors and nothing grating that brings it down. There is some implied sweetness that could interfere with some tastings, but as things are this works very well and tastes exquisite. Excellent work, Bruichladdich. This is harsher than the various Octomores, but not to an absurd degree. This is quite harsh with plenty of smoke and peat, but also plenty of rich body to it. There's more spice than I remembered and it's also more bitter. I like the Octomore 10 better from a hedonistic perspective. This does best the Octomore 9.3, but it struggles against the 8.1 and probably loses to the 9.1. Following the Octomore 10, this tastes a lot more like Laphroaig than it usually does. I really wish that it were less harsh. Watered down enough, the grain really come out, overwhelming the harshness and bringing some nice fruitiness (orange) and chocolate with it. The cinnamon flavor and sweetness are still there though. At this point, this is quite a nice whiskey.

Peaty and vanilla notes

I think this is a good deal better than its predecessor which had no age statement. I always get suspicious when distilleries remove age statements because I feel they're embarrassed to admit their decreasing the age in order to maximize profit. I love that Bruichladdich did the opposite. They added an age statement and it's pretty obvious that it is indeed older than than the NAS that came before it. The smoke has nicely acclimated to the other flavors such stone fruit, brine, and caramel. If you've had the Classic Laddie you know what's there behind the peat. However, if you find those same notes in this, you'll find that they're darker, richer, and less sharp. If I had to describe the profile to a fellow lover of Islay, it's about halfway between Laphroaig and Ardbeg. It has the brine of Argbeg with the smoke and a little bit of the medicinal notes that Laphroaig has. Pick this up because it's good.