I've wanted to taste these two Port Charlottes since I first started appreciating real whisky, quite a few years ago now. Inspired by watching YouTube videos, trawling distillery websites, reading reviews - yes, even the "whisky bible" - and creating dream shopping carts on various whisky websites - we've all done it! The early Port Charlotte heavily peated cask strength range from Islay's Bruichladdich caught my relatively inexperienced eye back then, along with a few other very special whiskies like the epic original Ardbeg Supernova from 2009, and the legendary Octomore 2.2 Orpheus which remains on the top of that wish list. Since those early days I've been lucky enough to tick a few legendary whiskies off of that list, although on the other hand more unobtainable whiskies have been added to it since. But since they were already quite rare in those times the two first releases of the Port Charlotte series, PC5 and PC6, have managed to elude me. In fact I'd never even managed to see these whiskies in reality until recently. But now, thanks to an extremely generous fellow whisky nerd who opened and shared all eight PC_ series bottlings on his birthday this year, I finally get to taste & review them!
These are the slightly mysterious cask strength Port Charlottes, also known as the PC_ series, the last expression of which was bottled back in 2015. Not to be confused with the core range expressions, they are the far rarer and more elusive bottlings from the early days of Port Charlotte distillation at Bruichladdich, including the first production runs in 2001, soon after the distillery had been resuscitated from it's seven-year closure by the now-legendary Jim McEwan, Mark Reynier and Duncan McGillivray. All of these PC_ bottlings had age statements, were bottled at cask strength, and were heavily peated to 40 ppm in the usual Port Charlotte fashion, and all but the first had meaningful Gaelic names emblazoned on their tins & labels. Aside from one bottling in the line-up, all were matured in either ex-bourbon casks only or a mix of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, and the outer tins all featured photos of distillery staff or Islay locals as a tribute to the people that either made or enabled others to make these whiskies. Being products of Bruichladdich Distillery of course they were all bottled at natural colour and non-chill filtered. The series started with PC5, as in Port Charlotte 5-year old, which was released in 2006, and it ended with the PC12 bottling, at at least 12-years of age, being first released in 2014 and winding up back in 2015. Both PC11 & PC12 (both reviewed here) were travel retail / duty free exclusive, each consisting of 12,000 bottles, while the earlier bottlings were more limited and harder to source. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a bottle of PC7 (reviewed here) over 5 years ago now, and it was absolutely fantastic, making me lust after it's predecessors even more!
PC5 was the very first release of Port Charlotte. The heavily peated brainchild of Jim McEwan, Port Charlotte was inspired by the LochIndaal Distillery that was located in the village of Port Charlotte and closed in 1929. The original warehouses from that dead distillery are now owned by Bruichladdich, and are used to mature all three spirits that the distillery produces - the un-peated Bruichladdich, the heavily-peated Port Charlotte, and the super-heavily peated Octomore. PC5 carried the name 'Evolution'. It was distilled in May 2001, and was matured for five years in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks in the old LochIndaal Distillery warehouses in Port Charlotte. It was bottled in 2006 at a hefty cask strength of 63.5% ABV, and only 6,000 bottles were produced. Naturally you'll now be looking at overseas whisky auctions for this piece of modern Islay history, if you can find a bottle at all. One popular online UK retailer has a bottle in stock at the time of writing, and they're asking 750 GBP for it, which with shipping, tax & duty would end up costing you around $1,800 AUD. Not a cheap proposition for a 5-year old whisky, but we have to remember that it's an irreplaceable milestone in the history of Port Charlotte, Bruichladdich and Islay as a whole. Let's get to it!
Distilled May 2001, bottled 2006. Matured in a combination of ex-bourbon & ex-sherry casks in the warehouses of the former LochIndaal Distillery in Port Charlotte. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 6,000 bottles.
Colour: Gold.
Nose: Salty & very coastal, sea shells, kelp, sea spray & warm sand. Caramel popcorn and some gristy malt behind a light & sweet wood smoke. There's a bit of nose prickle, but that's to be expected. Vanilla paste and icing sugar, a touch of iodine, more sea spray. Not a shy whisky by any means!
Texture: Boom! Heavy weight, big & bold, thick & oily. A little heat, but again that's to be expected.
Taste: Delicious. Sweet & smoky, salty & lightly medicinal. It's a bit raw & a bit hot, but it's 5-years old and 63.5% remember. And that's cask-filling strength for most distilleries remember, but not Bruichladdich. And despite that PC5 is full of flavour and very drinkable. There's a thick & acrid wood smoke, more kelp & sea spray, smoky & gristy malt, and a good dab of vanilla paste and sweet lime juice.
Finish: Medium-long length, powerful. A raw & spirit-driven experience, but there's not a hint of harshness or roughness about it by any means. Some chipotle sauce (smoked green chillies), more bbq wood smoke, and a delicious sweet & malty spirit punching through vanilla, a few new bandages & a touch of salted liquorice.
Score: 4 out of 5.
Notes: Wow. This could easily pass for an Octomore, but with a heavier texture and more wood smoke (rather than peat) & coastal influence. One of the most 'coastal' Port Charlottes that I've ever tasted. It's powerful, it's a bit raw, but it's delicious. PC5 is excellent. It's young, it's big & bold and spirit-led, but I love that. At least I love that when it's done well, which is definitely the case here. Now I need to get my hands on some Port Charlotte new make spirit, because I suspect it'd be fantastic! There's nothing aggressive, rough or rushed about this 5-year old whisky, it's exceedingly well-made and it's surprisingly balanced to boot. Actually that's not all that surprising, since this is a Bruichladdich, and that's just what they do! It does have that BBQ wood smoke and sweetness that is Port Charlotte's signature move, but it's also very coastal and more powerful than most. Fantastic stuff, and it's a real honour to taste and review the first Port Charlotte single malt ever released. That's another special whisky ticked off on the bucket list!
But that's not all folks...
Next up, the legendary PC6. That legendary status was largely thanks to the slightly unsettling review that appeared in Jim Murray's "whisky bible" at the time, where he gave it 96.5 points and wrote a series of suspicious noises as his tasting notes, and also thanks to the poetic official tasting notes from Jim McEwan himself, PC6 was at the top of my early bucket list for quite some time. It's a bit of an outlier in the PC_ range, being the only expression that was packaged in a white tin rather than the black tins of the rest of the series, and being the only expression to feature maturation in something other than bourbon and/or sherry casks. It was also the first of the series to feature a Gaelic name, which in this case was "Cuart Beatha", meaning "The Walk of Life". Originating from those same early distillation runs in 2001, PC6 was matured for six years in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-Madeira fortified wine casks. Bottled in 2007 at a cask strength of 61.6%, it was a far larger release consisting of 18,000 bottles, but that hasn't made it much easier to find in 2019. To my knowledge this is the only official bottling of Port Charlotte to spend any time in Madeira casks, and of course it's another piece of Bruichladdich history. So this one is just as exciting as the last!
Distilled 2001, bottled 2007. Matured in ex-bourbon and ex-Madeira casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 18,000 bottles.
Colour: Gold.
Nose: Slightly richer & rounder, and a little more mellow, but still powerful. Sweeter as well, more syrupy & lightly floral but also pleasantly citrus-y and acidic. Handfuls of dates & golden raisins in syrup, some sea spray and a sweet & thick wood smoke. A little grassy & herbal note, and generous dashes of sweetened lemon & lime juice. Some grilled stone fruit, smoked paprika and a touch of white grape.
Texture: Again, boom! Rich & syrupy sweet, big & powerful, but rounder & more mellow. Utterly beautiful.
Taste: Oh yes. Hello there! Quite the flavour explosion here. More BBQ grilled stone fruit and date syrup, more golden raisins - maybe even sultanas, tinned fruit salad in sweet syrup, with a pinch of vanilla sugar / vanilla extract. Then that sweetened lemon juice again, and a little acidic white grape behind a soft & sweet wood smoke.
Finish: Long & mouth-watering. Sweet & syrupy, more grilled & caramelised stone fruit, white grape and date syrup. Some more smoked paprika, warm wood smoke and a little soft ash. A touch of salted burnt toffee, more sweetened lemon & lime juice, and some peanut brittle.
Score: 4.5 out of 5.
Notes: Yep, I'll take more of that please! It's big & syrupy sweet, the smoke is still there but it's mainly in the finish this time. There's a bucket-load of flavour and character on offer, and the texture is absolutely beautiful. It's a beautiful whisky overall, in fact. And once again it's wonderfully balanced, the Madeira casks haven't overwhelmed anything, they've just added extra dimensions to the big picture. I can see why the hat-wearer got carried away with this one. We don't seem to agree on much these days, but in this case I completely understand. PC6 is notably richer & rounder than it's younger sibling, but there's absolutely no compromise involved with that. Even the (sadly) empty glass smells utterly fantastic. Absolute magic.
Overall: What an experience! And not one to be taken lightly. A massive thanks to the extremely generous donor for these extremely special samples. After all of the anticipation and all of the starry-eyed hopefulness from yours truly, there's not even a modicum of disappointment with either of these very special whiskies. Quite the opposite actually, they've both exceeded my already-high expectations. Bruichladdich have kept the magic going with the Port Charlotte label, and in more recent years there have been some brilliant whiskies bottled bearing that name, but PC6 is now my favourite Port Charlotte of all time. Just an absolutely beautiful whisky! I wonder if any of the older bottlings, PC7 through to PC10, can knock it off that pedestal? Well, again thanks to that generous donor, you won't have to wait long to find out...
Cheers!
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