How do you say "Bruichladdich"?

Our first dram of the Second Semester

For the first Water of Life Society tasting of 2012, we were fortunate to host Craig Johnstone from Bruichladdich distillery. As an American, I whenever I saw "Bruichladdich" I expected to develop a cold trying to get all of those consonants into one word. While the Scots aren't silly enough to and don't even attempt to pronounce every letter, I first thought that it should just be spelled "brookladdie". Now, I believe that these whiskies are so complex that they do need all those extra letters in their name. They require a name that demonstrates their finesse and boldness with a lot of extra consonants.

Our journey through Bruichladdich began with the classic Laddie Ten and finished off with a dram from the Port Charlotte An Turas Mor (Gaelic for "the great journey" appropriately enough). Throughout the night I took notes on what I personally experienced with each dram, as well as what I heard others saying. I hope that these will help others remember the experience of this fabulous tasting.

The Laddie Ten
Nose: Roasting walnuts, honeyed lemon, fresh summer fruits at a sea side picnic
Taste: Creamy ginger, quite delicate bourbon flavors, very light in nature and subtle that finished in a rounded vanilla after-taste.
Overall: An excellent session whisky, very easy to drink and enjoy

The Organic
Nose: "old cheese", salty fish, dried and salted pork
Taste: Roasted chicken, hints of lemon and almonds, a hurried flavor that revealed all its secrets instantly and left the back of the throat dry in a salty sea of smoke.
Overall: Not my favorite of the night, this whisky seemed to polarize the room. Either you hated it or loved it.

The Bordeaux First Series: The Sixteens
Nose: Cooking cherries and peaches, not roasting but almost like making a cherry-peach jam.
Taste: A surge of cinnamon followed by a slight taste of charcoal. Sweet, honeyed red berries that were extremely transient. Almonds, brown sugar, and a definite flavor of red wine. A bouncy dram that left a certain bitterness that made you long for the initial sweetness.
Overall: A really excellent dram and a very unusual concept behind it. I definitely enjoyed it. 

Eimear examining her dram of the sixteens

Black Art 2, 21 years old
Nose: Butter, fruit, crasins in a cucumber walnut salad, fresh shortbread
Taste: "a more intense 16 year old" but more than that. The same red berries were present, but they were rapidly followed by a wave of glorious sunshine.
Overall: This was the dram that did it for me that night. From its presentation in the black bottle with archaic symbols to the surprise of the bright maroon color of the whisky, this dram kept changing and becoming more and more intense and intricate. Extremely provocative and seemingly simple this was a dram that just kept giving. It was something very unusual and a world unto itself.

Port Charlotte: An Turas Mor
Nose: Very smoky, especially compared to the others during the night. Still hints of vanilla and lemon present within a presence of saltiness.
Taste: Dry, heavy peat spiced by lemon, cinnamon, citrus, lime. A bit of beef jerky--in a creamy kind of way. The flavors eventually mellowed out in the mouth after building a series of smokey and citrus layers.
Overall: Again, a very great whisky that really complimented the power house of the Black Art 2 that preceded it. Many people said that this was their dram of the evening, and I was inclined to agree that it was something pretty special.

Olivier, Scott, Eimear, Craig, myself, Sam, Simeon and Bruichladdich

We truly enjoyed having such a special tasting to usher in the new year and the new semester. Craig was also patient with us as we acknowledged two committee members that night. Scott and Sam turned 21 over the holidays and many of us in the society came together to present them with a little something special to mark the occasion. Both of the young men were given 21 year old bottles from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and boy were they happy!

Apparently this is how men express their feelings