Octomore 8.2 Whisky Review!

A wine cask-heavy 8-year old travel exclusive official Octomore, released back in 2017 - those years have passed quickly!

It may feel like the Octomore 8 Series has been relegated to the archives since the 11 Series has now appeared in Australia. This constant stream of new releases is getting hard to keep up with - both for the collectors and Octo-heads and also for the importers and distributors! The 8 Series was unleashed upon the world back in 2017, during my maiden voyage to Islay in fact,  the surprising news that three of the four bottlings were actually eight years old! That was a first for an Octomore series and a substantial age difference over the 'regular' five year olds, and aside from the 10-year old releases and unobtainium like Event Horizon and OBA, isn't likely to be beaten. In fact Bruichladdich went straight back to the standard ages with the 9 Series, which also carried lower ppm numbers and far-less explorative cask recipes, and thus didn't get anywhere near the attention that its predecessor enjoyed. Aside from the increased ages in the 8 Series, there was of course one special drawcard in the four bottlings - Octomore 8.3, which carried the highest ppm count of any Octomore at 309.1 ppm - on the malted barley, remember - and was the 8-series release that stayed at five years of age. Naturally release received the lion's share of the attention, but the other releases in this series were also very good - 8.1 is still my favourite _.1 Octomore since the mighty 5.1, and while the virgin oak-influenced 8.4 wasn't as "out there" as the ground-breaking 7.4 it was very tasty regardless. While every bottling series in the world of whisky will always have highs and lows, I'd have to say that the 8-series was one of those rare cases where all of the bottlings were definitely winners. 

One of the four bottlings had proven a little harder to track down, however. As it always is, since the _.2 releases have been "travel exclusive" - only available from duty free stores - from 6.2 up until 11.2 at least, and we can thank COVID for that recent change in approach since the world's airports and ports aren't what they once were, and won't be anytime soon. Let's hope this global tragedy sees a few distilleries and brands re-think their approach to duty free bottlings, hopefully towards making them more readily available without the need for international jet-setting. Bruichladdich's Australian distributors have actually done that with the Laddie Eight that is normally travel exclusive, with it replacing the entry level Laddie Classic in many stores. And I'd argue that the delicious Eight is a significantly better deal, so that's certainly a win for the 'laddie fans! The _.2 releases have always stood apart from the rest of the Octomore range. That's partly due to the availability of course, but also due to their maturation - mostly due to wine casks being involved to varying degrees. The first of these, the legendary 2.2 Orpheus, was finished - Additional Cask Enhanced in Bruichladdich-speak - in Chateau Petrus red wine casks, while the highly-regarded 4.2 Comus was finished in Sauternes dessert wine casks, followed by the Cognac / Brandy cask-finished 6.2. Then the delicious and wildly-unappreciated 7.2 arrived, which was a mix of ex-bourbon and ex-Syrah red wine casks, matured separately and married together rather than a cask finish. 8.2 is much more complex, so it'll be covered in the next paragraph, while 9.2 was finished in second-fill red wine casks with the use of second-fill being a first for a _.2 Octomore. While tasty, in my opinion it is or rather was the low-point in the _.2 Octomore history. But the sauternes cask finished and 8-year old 10.2 was the redeemer that also broke the mould, since while easily the least-peaty Octomore I've tasted to date, is an absolutely delicious whisky in it's own right. 

My first encounter with 8.2 was on Islay, in the Laddie Shop at the Distillery, and it had only just been released - so recently in fact that there was only one bottle available to taste, and it was kept hidden away from the thirsty punters until the bottling hall had caught up. I must admit here that my memory of this particular dram is a little hazy - after a distillery tour and warehouse tasting, followed by a couple of other samples in the shop including the hand-filled Valinch bottlings and the delicious 7.2 for posterity's sake, adding in the sheer emotion and excitement of the first visit to these hallowed grounds, so I had not given 8.2 the attention that it deserved. But now, nearly four years later, and thanks to a generous sample from a fellow whisky nerd, I'm able to right that wrong! This 8-year old travel exclusive Octomore has had a very complicated and very wine-heavy upbringing. With the barley peated to 167 ppm and the spirit distilled back in 2008, the spirit was filled in to three different types of wine cask: French Mourvedre, an intense, tannin-heavy and peppery 'full-bodied' red wine, un-named Austrian sweet wines, and French Sauternes sweet wines. The spirit spent around six years in those three varieties of wine cask, before being married together and finished / additional cask enhanced for a further two years in another type of wine cask: Amarone, which is a dry Italian red wine. So that's basically six years in three different types of wine cask, and another two years in a fourth type of wine cask. I told you it was wine-cask heavy! Bottling strength on this one was 58.4%, with a generous 36,000 bottles released, and no chill filtration or added colouring involved of course. The sample for this review came from a sample swap with a generous fellow-whisky nerd. Let's do it!

Octomore 8.2, 8-years old, 58.4%. Islay, Scotland.

167 ppm barley, distilled in 2008. Matured in French Mourvedre, Austrian sweet wine and French Sauterne sweet wine casks for 6 years, finished in Italian Amarone red wine casks for 2 years. Travel exclusive, 36,000 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Deep copper. 

Nose: Smoked bacon, black pepper and stone fruit. Sweet apricots & nectarines in syrup, with a couple of sour cherries and a few peach skins thrown in for good measure. Buttery over-cooked pancakes with smoky maple syrup. A little spicy oak & green chilli heat. 

Texture: Heavy weight. Very rich, oily & syrupy. Lightly ashy and a touch of heat. 

Taste: Sweet & smoky entry with that smoked bacon and black pepper, then that syrupy stone fruit comes through to soften things up. That's followed quickly by an ashy, earthy peat, green chilli heat, black pepper & wood spices, plus blow-torched orange rind. 

Finish: Long length. The green chilli heat & ashy peat carry through, then the black pepper with a touch of astringency. Torched orange rind again, then the stone fruit in syrup with the smoky maple syrup sweetness, and warm, spicy toasted oak. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious. It's different, and it's slightly hot, but it's packed with flavour, and the texture is wonderful - even with that slight heat. And to be fair, Octomores are rarely gentle! In 8.2 the peat & smoke are tamed slightly by the fruit and syrupy sweetness, while the chilli and oak spices are still assertive, but it all works very well together. There was something special about the 8-series of Octomores if you ask me, and the 8.2 shows a sweeter and fruitier side to the foursome. All four bottlings did set the bar quite high, and subsequent series' have certainly had some big shoes to fill! While there have been some excellent stand-out bottlings in those more recent series', and while I'm yet to taste any of the 11-series bottlings, I'd say that the 8-series was a rare case of all four releases being absolute winners!

Untasted, I was a little wary of the amount of wine casks that were involved in 8.2's maturation - even more so since it had spent eight years in those casks rather than the usual five. But I should've known better, because Bruichladdich are basically the masters of wine cask maturation, and Octomore tends to work very well with them. It's just a shame that most of these extra-unconventional _.2 bottlings are exclusive to travel retail / duty free stores. Octomore and Bruichladdich fans are being deprived of a different, but no less essential, aspect of Octomore and Port Charlotte, especially given the current global situation. The distillery did take steps to correct this with the recent 11.2, which was sold directly from their website - although neither DHL or Australian Customs are shy about taking advantage of those situations! As for these older bottlings, I suppose the advantage is that they're likely to still be available from some Australian airports, despite being bottled a few years ago now. So maybe that's an advantage? We'll have to wait for a certain virus to finally bugger off to find out...

Cheers!