All but one of the island's distilleries (I'm looking at you, Ardbeg!) offer either a distillery exclusive or hand-filled bottling (plus Feis Ile bottlings if your timing - and luck - are spot on), with even giant Caol Ila now offering hand-filled 200ml bottles for purchase in their shop, in addition to their distillery exclusive bottling that was released in 2017. Laphroaig offer hand-filled 250ml bottles as part of their two top-tier distillery tours, the "Distiller's Wares Tour" and the "Water to Whisky Experience", where you taste three whiskies straight from the cask in their warehouse, and then choose your favourite to bottle and take home. Lagavulin have a distillery exclusive bottling and often exclusive Feis Ile or Jazz Festival bottlings, and Bunnahabhain usually offer both hand-filled and distillery exclusive bottlings, often taken from unusual cask types. Kilchoman usually have a high-level distillery shop exclusive single cask bottling, while Bowmore offers distillery exclusive hand-filled bottles, again if your timing is right, although you don't actually bottle those yourself. And I should add that most of these exclusive bottlings are quite reasonably priced.
But there aren't many that can match Bruichladdich's Valinch offerings, where there are usually two casks to choose from, an un-peated Bruichladdich and a heavily-peated Port Charlotte (40 ppm). Or you could also get both, of course! A valinch by the way is a long tube-shaped siphon used to draw liquid from casks through the bung hole. These single cask bottlings are sold in 500ml bottles, usually for around 70-75 pounds, and are filled straight from the tapped casks in the distillery shop. There's no need to do a distillery tour to purchase, although I do recommend both that and the fantastic warehouse experience if you're making the journey. Adding to the allure is the fact that these Valinch casks are often unusual, most commonly being a wide variety of red wine casks (in typical Bruichladdich style), but also dessert wine, white wine, virgin oak, and of course sherry and bourbon casks have been released. The Bruichladdich releases are titled 'The Laddie Valinch', and are often named for distillery staff members, while the Port Charlotte releases are titled "Cask Exploration", and often have a Gaelic name. Obviously these whiskies are always bottled at cask strength, and are never chill filtered or artificially coloured, and the quality level is usually very high.
The two that I'm looking at today are Port Charlotte Cask Exploration 07, which was released in mid-2016, and Port Charlotte Cask Exploration 12, which was released in early 2017. Cask Exploration 07 is a 9-year old Port Charlotte that was fully-matured in a Rivesaltes red wine cask, cask number 1653, which yielded 393 bottles at a huge ABV of 64.7%. Rivesaltes is a style of sweet fortified wine, usually red, produced in the south-west of France, and it's often left outdoors in glass containers to stabilise before being filled into casks. Cask Exploration 12 is a 9-year old Port Charlotte that was fully-matured in a Barolo wine cask, cask number 1739, which yielded 436 bottles at 59.9% ABV. Barolo is a red wine from northern Italy, made from Nebbiolo grapes, and is often quite heavy and tannic wine. Port Charlotte often gets overlooked by some whisky fans, with either the un-peated Bruichladdich or the super-heavily-peated Octomore getting most of the attention. But Port Charlotte is a little bit of a sleeper, nicely smoky & sweet, which should work well with these first-fill red wine casks! The samples I'm reviewing came from a fellow whisky nerd, who sourced both bottles from a popular UK auction site. Let's get to it...
Distillery exclusive hand-filled. Distilled 9/2007, released 2017. Matured in a single first-fill Barolo Italian wine cask, cask number 1739, yielded 436 500ml bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Gold.
Nose: Quite shy, even after breathing time & warming. Nicely dirty & funky though, with dried sour red & citrus fruits, some 'laddie lactic funk but in a more dirty & drier way than usual. A little floral & heather-y sweetness, and some dry earthy peat in the background.
Texture: Medium weight, quite dry and peppery, a little heat but not a huge amount for a 9-year old whisky at nearly 60% ABV.
Taste: More peat here, quite dry as well with that peppery spice. Still not a lot of peat though, more of a dry earthy-ness. Certainly not at the level of smoke that I've found in other cask strength Port Charlottes. Some thick stewed fruits and that dirty funky-ness in the background.
Finish: Medium length, a little hot and peppery again. A little cologne and stewed fruit, and it is tannic, but they're more wood tannins than wine tannins to my palate.
Score: 3 out of 5.
Notes: Not a big heat for me to be honest, the funky-ness and fruit are a nice touch but that dry peppery spice is too dominant and doesn't play nicely with others. I did add a little water after the tasting notes, just to see what happened, and as you'd expect it dialled down the pepper and dialled up the sweetness, bringing it more towards the lactic sweetness that Bruichladdich is famous for.
Distillery exclusive hand-filled. Distilled 8/2006, released 2016. Matured in a single first-fill Rivesaltes French wine cask, cask number 1653, yielded 393 500ml bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Full amber. Much darker.
Nose: Much richer & fuller. Loads of dark chocolate and shredded coconut, toasted oak and some lanolin (sheep's wool grease used in skin creams) which is very interesting! Some sweet & musty dessert wine, can't quite put my finger on it so I assume it's the Rivesaltes showing itself. There's a little peat smoke as well, but only a trace.
Texture: Rich & funky. medium weight, far less hot than the Barolo cask despite the added 5% ABV.
Taste: More chocolate! Fruit & nut semi-dark chocolate, and a little more of that lanolin and shredded coconut, and the toasted oak. Some dried fruit, and a touch of dry earthy peat.
Finish: Medium length. A little spice initially, then that sweet, syrupy & musty dessert wine, more lanolin, dried stone fruit and a flash of earthy peat.
Score: 4 out of 5.
Notes: Very nice! Totally different to the Barolo cask, as it should be of course, but it's much richer, and more mature in my humble opinion. Really enjoyable, and I'm loving that lanolin note that I don't remember finding before to this degree. It's a big whisky of course but it's not hot or aggressive with the alcohol being well hidden, and the flavours carry through very well. Great stuff.
Overall Notes: Two extremely different whiskies! Both a surprisingly light on the peat and smoke, in fact they're very different animals compared to the other cask strength Port Charlottes that I've tried at a similar age. But that's the beauty of single cask whiskies of course, no two are the same, as nature intended. There's no denying how special these drams are, being hand-filled single cask Port Charlottes that have come from that cosy haven of a shop / visitor's centre at the distillery, there's no more where they came from. And being matured in usual cask types just adds to that allure, which is often the case with these valinch bottlings from Bruichladdich.
Obviously the Barolo cask and I didn't quite hit it off, and the Rivesaltes cask absolutely smashed it despite the not-insignificant jump in strength. I suspect that given these two in a blind tasting I would've guessed the latter to be older than the former, which isn't the case, I'm assuming it was just a more active cask. Nonetheless, knowing where these whiskies came from takes me right back to that grey, rainy "dreich" day on the shore of Loch Indaal, when the rain started as I arrived and stopped as I departed, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I can't wait to get back there again in a couple of month's time!
Cheers!
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