Octomore Farm 9 Year Old Whisky Review!

A private (and technically independent) single cask bottling of 9-year old Octomore! This should be very interesting!

I say technically independent, because this whisky was still distilled, matured and bottled at Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay, so it's more of a private bottling than a typical independent bottling. What we have here is a single cask Octomore, named after James Brown's Octomore farm where the Islay-grown barley used for the _.3 expressions comes from, and where the water source for Octomore is located. The farm is a couple of miles south of the distillery in the village of Port Charlotte, which is also where the old Loch Indaal Distillery warehouses, owned & used by Bruichladdich, are located. As you can probably guess these casks are owned by James Brown himself (the Islay farmer, not the soul singer!), and they're sold & distributed by Derek Mather, the owner of Artisan restaurant in Wishaw (south of Glasgow) and a die-hard Bruichladdich fanatic. As far as I can find there have only been a few bottlings of Octomore Farm released, all single casks at cask strength, and all from ex-bourbon casks, and you'll find a bottling of Bruichladdich's 50 ppm spirit, named LochIndaal and basically never seen as an official bottling, under the same name. Bruichladdich officially bottle three different single malts, the un-peated Bruichladdich, the heavily-peated (40 ppm) Port Charlotte, and the super-heavily peated Octomore. But if you dig further into the independent and more obscure official bottlings you'll also find the LochIndaal spirit which is slightly more heavily peated than the heavily peated Port Charlottes. As far as I'm aware, aside from a mysterious 'Futures' bottling and a single distillery-exclusive Valinch bottling, all other Lochindaal bottlings have been private casks or independent bottlings. Forgive the digression there, let's get back to it!

Octomore typically uses super-heavily peated malted barley sourced from Bairds Maltings in Inverness, although the Octomore _.3 expressions (there have been four bottlings to date) have used Islay-grown barley which is transported to Inverness for malting, and sent back to Bruichladdich to make Octomore. Each batch of malt varies in it's peaty-ness, with the highest so far measuring in at a whopping 309.1 ppm which was responsible for the delicious Octomore 8.3. The second highest was the original Islay barley Octomore, the fantastic 6.3 that weighed in at 258 ppm and was released back in late 2014. That little beauty is still my favourite Octomore bottling to date, and it just so happens that the Octomore Farm bottling we're looking at today was distilled from that same batch of Octomore Farm-grown barley, peated to that same huge number of 258 ppm measured on the malt. It was also distilled in the same year (and probably the same distillation runs) in 2009, but rather than being bottled at 5 years of age it was left sleeping in it's single bourbon barrel-home for a further four years, before being bottled in 2018. That little factoid is also very exciting, because during the Bruichladdich warehouse tasting that I attended on my second Islay pilgrimage in 2018 one of the three casks tasted was an Octomore 6.3 'remnant' that had been left in the cask for nine years, and it was absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best Octomore that I've ever tasted, in fact. On paper this private bottling should be along those same lines, so I have very high hopes for this one!

So, this Octomore Farm private bottling is a 9-year old single ex-bourbon cask, distilled from Islay barley peated to 258 ppm, and bottled at a cask strength of 61.8%. Being a Bruichladdich product (kind of) it is of course non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. The sample for this review came from a fellow whisky nerd who ordered a bottle of this very rare whisky while living in Europe, and was generous enough to share it on a recent trip back to Australia. Exciting stuff!

Octomore Farm 9-year old Octomore private bottling, 61.8%. Islay, Scotland.
Distilled Feb 2009 from Islay barley peated to 258 ppm, matured in single ex-bourbon barrel #336, bottled Mar 2018. Cask strength, non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Medium-gold.

Nose: Interesting! It's fresh, sweet & sour, and very malty. And surprisingly subtle! There's crumbly, chalky, earthy peat, fizzy lemon squash, a bit of aniseed - maybe fennel seed, actually (perfume-y aniseed-like flavour but fresher & lighter than liquorice). That trademark 'laddie lactic sweetness is there too, like a lightly sweetened cream cheese.

Texture: Heavy weight, very thick & rich, and peaty of course. There's a bit of heat, but this is a 9-year old whisky at nearly 62%, so that's to be expected.

Taste: Big & peaty, but again it's fresh, sweet & sour, and remarkably malty. More fizzy soft drink but it reminds me more of cola here rather than lemon. Some red chilli heat, more fennel, and a huge chunky, bitter, earthy peat that isn't going anywhere.

Finish: Long, of course! That big chunky, earthy peat is still there, as expected, and so is that aniseed / fennel seed, and a beautiful gristy, smoky malty-ness. Slight vanilla, some blow-torched bitter lemon peel, that fizzy freshness again, and some lemon cream cheese cake frosting / icing.

Score: 4.5 out of 5.

Notes: Whoa, this is fantastic! Really, really good stuff. Call me crazy, but it does very much remind me of Octomore 6.3 - which is high praise- and that 9-year old "cask remnant" 6.3 from last year's warehouse tasting at the distillery. Which does make sense, but I didn't really expect it for some reason. There are some differences though, a bit more heat and a bit less cask influence in this bottling I'd say, but it's absolutely delicious regardless. This is a purist's Octomore, with no fancy cask finishing or exotic wine casks to be seen, just a beautiful peaty spirit with loads of Octomore and Bruichladdich character. There's a surprising amount of distillery character here actually - surprising because of the massive peat levels in play - and that remarkable fresh, malty, almost "clean" flavour that is present in this super-heavily peated whisky at nearly 62%. Which is the magic of Octomore of course, right here in plain sight. This single cask has reminded me just how fantastic 6.3 was, and now is, with a few more years of maturation under its belt. What a treat!

Needless to say, if you're a fan of this style of malt and you manage to stumble across a bottle of this Octomore Farm variant, you're going to want to buy it. And if you don't, I will! Very well done to all of those responsible for this fantastic whisky. Please keep 'em coming, and if you could make them just a little easier to get in Australia, well that'd be great too!

Cheers!