Octomore X4+10. The 'X4' refers to the distillation, while the '+10' refers to the age. An experimental, "why not?" whisky from the kings & queens of "why not" whisky! This is a quadruple-distilled Octomore that has been aged for 10-years. As you can probably guess, quadruple-distilled means this whisky was run through the stills at Bruichladdich four times. Each run 'purifying' the spirit, and concentrating the alcohol, and 'lightening' and 'refining' this single malt. Speaking of which, yes this single malt whisky is still single malt whisky, since the final distillation strength was a ridiculous 89% ABV after those four distillation runs - and the maximum 'legal' distillation strength for all Scotch whisky is 94.8%. That's a concentration of ethanol that is normally reserved for a column / continuous stills rather than pot stills. This is not the first time that Bruichladdich have played around with quadruple-distillation, and it's not even the first time they've done this to an Octomore - that honour went to the "Discovery" Octomore that was bottled for the annual Islay Festival Feis Ile back in 2014. That one was bottled at 7-years of age, and it was watered down to a whopping 69.5% ABV. This second take was bottled in late 2019 at 10-years of age, at an equally-whopping 70% ABV - most likely cask strength, but that's not officially stated. That makes X4 the highest strength whisky that Bruichladdich have ever bottled, and it's not likely to be beaten any time soon. In fact it'll also be one of the highest strength single malt Scotch whiskies ever bottled! This has been labelled as an Octomore "Concept" bottling, but this is not an OBA - Octomore Black Art - Concept bottling - that title has only been seen adorning that one legendary, incredible whisky (reviewed here) from 2017, so far at least, as was the orange tin that housed it. Instead this is Octomore Concept 0.2, X4+10.
As was the case with OBA, there were a total of 3,000 bottles of Octomore X4+10 released, and they too sold out very quickly through the distillery's own website. Controversially, they were also 500ml bottles, although I don't see why that's still a controversial thing - pricing not considered, smaller bottles equals more bottles in the release, which means more people (hopefully) get to buy the whisky, which means more people get to try the whisky. And don't forget that regardless of that initial price, the same whisky in a full-size bottle would be considerably more expensive; no distillery or bottler is going to give you another 200ml of whisky for nothing. Bruichladdich also put their Valinch distillery-exclusive bottlings in 500ml bottles, and likewise the legendary OBA, with quite a few other distilleries following suit. Maybe I'm just more comfortable with it since I'm in Australia, where a huge proportion of Australian whisky goes into 500ml bottles. You just need to factor that in to your consideration of the pricing, and if it still makes sense to your personal budget, and what you consider to be good or reasonable value, then you suck it up and move on. If the same bottle in 700ml form would be well over your usual budget, then you either make an exception based on how much you want said bottle, or you move on. Speaking of pricing, X4+10 was priced at 150 GBP from the distillery, and when you factor in shipping (usually another 30 GBP to Australia), local customs charges and taxes that makes for a very expensive bottle of whisky - and yes, that's with the 500ml thing factored in. Needless to say, within days of this whisky selling out from the source, and before many had even been shipped, there were countless listings on auction sites, European Ebay sites and other resellers (including bottle shops) that were attempting to flip their bottle/s for a profit which ranged from massive to obscene. And unfortunately, most of those were probably sold. So we can't really blame the distillery for wanting to make a few extra pounds on their limited, unique releases, can we?
X4+10 was distilled somewhere around 2008-2009, which would have put it in-line with the Octomore 6-series. But it evidently wasn't, or at least it wasn't distilled from the same batch of malted barley, since most of the 6-series used 167 ppm barley, except the legendary and incredible 6.3 which used 258 ppm barley grown on Islay at Octomore farm. X4+10 used 162 ppm barley, which as far as I can recall doesn't match any of the previous bottlings of Octomore - so it may have been distilled from it's own specific batch of malted barley. But that ppm number doesn't matter in this case, because this whisky will not taste like any other Octomore, or any other peated whisky. That quadruple-distillation will have refined, 'purified' and effectively 'lightened' the spirit to the point where it was very different to all of those that had come before it - except that aforementioned Feis Ile bottling, at least. The phenolics will most likely be gone, or at least undetectable. But has this whisky also been stripped of it's character? We'll have to find out, but being a Bruichladdich product, I doubt it - although it is certainly guaranteed to be different. Adding to the effect of the quadruple-distillation on those phenols is the ten years of maturation, which for X4+10 has been in a combination of ex-bourbon, ex-sherry and ex-sweet wine casks. Anyone who has tasted the previous iterations of 10-year old Octomore will attest to them being obviously different to the 5-year old versions, with the peat influence softening a little and becoming more integrated and/or refined - which is generally what extra time in active casks does to peat influence. Now all of this begs the question, if this quadruple-distilled spirit wasn't going to taste like an Octomore, why use Octomore barley, and why make an Octomore like this at all? Scroll back to the opening sentence of this review for the answer: "why not?"! The sample for this review came from a sample swap with a fellow whisky nerd, and since I would likely have never tasted this whisky otherwise, I have to say thank you! Time to clear our sinuses...
Quadruple-distilled from barley peated to 162 ppm, matured in ex-bourbon, ex-sherry and ex-sweet wine casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 3,000 bottles.
Colour: Bright gold.
Nose: Extra breathing time required here, of course! Once the expected spirit-y heat pulls back, there's a sweet, fruity whisky underneath! Blowtorched dried orange segments, burnt butter-toffee, some sweet tropical fruit - think melon and under-ripe banana. Sweet & sour vanilla yoghurt - almost the 'laddie trademark lactic 'funk', but it's not quite the same here, it's 'cleaner' and more straight-forward. Freeze-dried strawberry, a few puffs of icing sugar and light, airy honeycomb (a.ka. cinder toffee).
Texture: Heavy weight. Somehow big & thick and agile & delicate at the same time. There's definitely heat, but it won't kill you in small doses - hopefully!
Taste: New make spirit, but it's a thick, mature, oxygenated version of new make spirit. More burnt butter-toffee, some leafy floral herbs (heather?), more burnt dried orange and thick hot chilli oil - with extra macerated red chilli for a garnish. A touch of thick honey on lightly burnt toast. Hot embers too - as in, you've swallowed some hot embers!
Finish: Short-medium length. The spirit-y heat is still leading, with that hot chilli oil, plus a touch of raw ginger and that heathery floral note again. Hint of aniseed too, and a touch of raisin-y sweet grape must - almost PX-like, or what I imagine paxarette would've been like. That'll be those sweet wine casks showing themselves, then. Spirit-y almost the whole way through, but that's par for the course!
Score: 3 out of 5.
Notes: This is a tough whisky to score. On the one hand, the quality is immediately obvious, and the fun factor is undeniable. But on the other, it's completely insane and is nothing like any whisky that has come before it, and I'm not sure that it should be repeated, for many reasons! As expected, this is nothing like any 'regular' Octomore - if there even is such a thing - that has ever existed. What's impressive though is that there is definitely still Bruichladdich DNA on show, the distillery character is there - just in a different guise from what we're used to. And it makes the delicious but very scarcely peated Octomore 10.2 feel like a peat monster in comparison! This whisky could've been called anything other than Octomore, but I can see why they've left that part alone - the challenge, the mystery, and the 'why not' ethos does also occasionally include messing with peoples' heads!
The experiment certainly does seem to have worked, and I'm glad the distillery left this bonkers creation in casks for a decade to settle down - although they probably did that just to see what would happen! If you're drinking X4+10 for pure enjoyment, then you'd probably want to add water. But there's also something alluring about it's purity and power at full strength that makes for one hell of an experience, provided you're accustomed to high strength whiskies to begin with. For the sheer fun factor, this is a fringe-dwelling Octomore to remember!
Cheers!
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