The tenth series of Octomore arrived in Australia with relatively little fanfare. For such a major & exciting milestone, the new arrivals were relatively quiet until the bottles started hitting the shelves, followed by the happy punter's glamour shots inevitably being posted on social media - and I'm just as guilty there! The preceding 9-series seemed to be a bit intermittent in terms of its release & availability down under, and many of the major whisky bars, at least where I am, don't have any of those on their shelves, let alone the 10-series. Likewise quite a few retailers didn't seem to get stock of the 9-series at all, and yet here we are now with the 10th series out in full force! Sometimes that's just what happens when you're sitting on the opposite side of the planet to the (geographical and spiritual) home of peated whisky, no doubt compounded with the fact that the last few months have been absolutely devastating for the hospitality industry - there were bigger fish to fry. But the whiskies are here now, and I''m lucky enough to be reviewing all four expressions in series! The reviews of 10.1, 10.3 and 10.4 are coming to you courtesy of samples provided for review by Mark Hickey, Brand Ambassador from Bruichladdich's Australian distributor, Spirits Platform, and with the 10.2 review coming from my own bottle. I'll post each review separately in numerical order, and then sum up my thoughts on the entire series in the 10.4 review. I've been looking forward to trying these since they were first announced by the distillery in late 2019, so getting to finally scratch this itch is going to feel pretty good!
The 10th series of Octomore still carries the name 'Dialogos', which started with the 9-series and is also adorning the recently-leaked and soon to be announced 11-series, so it's probably here to stay. Dialogos is a Greek word that obviously translates to dialogue, and in Bruichladdich's usage it refers to the conversation-inspiring and debate-provoking / divisive nature of Octomore, which is hard to argue with. While the 9-series featured the usual bourbon cask-matured _.1 bottling, the travel exclusive & wine cask-influenced _.2, and the Islay barley _.3 release, it deviated from the preceding 7- and 8-series that also featured Octomore _.4 expressions that were partially matured in virgin oak. Instead the fourth bottling in the 9-series was a 10-year old Octomore, making it the third iteration of a 10-year old Octomore to date. Arguably the 10-series would've been more suited to have a 10-year old bottling in the line-up, but they've instead gone in a different direction - in typical Bruichladdich style! This time around there's the usual 5-year old and bourbon cask-matured 10.1, the travel-exclusive wine cask-finished 10.2 that we're looking at next, then the Islay Barley 10.3 which for the first time is now six years old rather than five, and the 10.4 Virgin Oak release - but with a major difference over the previous two virgin oak bottlings. While both very delicious, neither 7.4 nor 8.4 were 100% fully-matured in virgin oak casks, while the new Octomore 10.4 is now a 3-year old whisky, the youngest Octomore ever released (but with no reduction in pricing, unfortunately), and it has been fully-matured in casks made from heavily-toasted virgin French oak. From what I've read so far it seems to be quite a polarising whisky, more so than Octomore always is, so it promises to be very interesting!
We'll naturally start these reviews with the _.1 expression, which is also where any Octomore newcomers should start before they dive in to the deeper end of the super-heavily peated pool. These are essentially the entry-level Octomores, the baseline bottlings for each series, and they always follow the same recipe - distilled from super-heavily peated Scottish barley, usually bottled at 5-years of age - the excellent 8.1 being the only exception so far at 8-years old - and matured in first-fill American oak ex-bourbon casks. The variables are in the bottling strength, the ppm measurement on the malted barley (always using mainland peat), the distilleries those ex-bourbon casks were sourced from, and occasionally the barley variety/varieties, although that's a more recent development / evolution in the distillery's aim for utmost transparency. The _.1 bottlings are always the most numerous in numbers, a huge 42,000 bottles in the case of 10.1, and while you wouldn't exactly call any Octomore expression cheap, they are the lowest priced of each series and in my opinion always offer good value for the quality of whisky that you get in return.
In the case of Octomore 10.1, it was distilled in 2013 from Scottish Concerto barley that was peated to 107 ppm at Bairds in Inverness, which is the lowest measurement on any _.1 Octomore to date, but don't go upending your desks & tables just yet - that doesn't mean all is lost. Octomores have always been about more than the numbers, with the use of mainland peat, plus Bruichladdich's long fermentation, tall stills and slow distillation, among other things, all affecting just how peaty the final whisky is - and if you only look at the numbers in comparison to some other whiskies, Octomores are often something of a contradiction. Yes, the tenth series is probably going to be lighter in peat & smoke than some of those that came before it, but that's OK - it's really all down to natural variation, and there'll still be plenty of phenolics to enjoy in these unmistakable opaque bottles. Even the distillery's own marketing materials on the 10-series states "...our new iterations explore a different realm of 'softer smoke'. We ask you to dismiss the numbers, and forget everything you think you know." Which is both really asking something and really saying something, because the Octomore line-up has always been marked by some stratospherically high numbers, and that's helped it stand out and helped this whisky get to where it is today! Octomore 10.1 was matured for those five years in first-fill ex-bourbon casks from Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, Buffalo Trace & Jack Daniels, and was bottled at a considerable 59.8%. Being a Bruichladdich single malt it is of course non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. Let's get this started!
Distilled in 2013 from Scottish barley peated to 107 ppm, matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks for five years, bottled 2019. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Pale gold.
Nose: Sweet, peaty & surprisingly medicinal! Tar, ink, iodine, aniseed and a deep, dank muddy peat. Over-smoked bacon with rinds, some dirty wet putty, salt-crusted oily smoked salmon, some distant pine needles with vanilla sugar syrup and fruit jube lollies.
Texture: Medium weight. Soft entry which then explodes! Very little heat for the age & strength.
Taste: Syrupy sweet entry with those sugary fruit jube lollies, then a big burst of dry chilli spice and pepper charred oak alongside a chunk of muddy, earthy peat. More of that smoked fish, iodine, and some charred lemon, plus a slight rubbery note with more aniseed and some old-style cough drops.
Finish: Long length. Spicy initially with black pepper, clove and dried chilli, then more chunky muddy peat and iodine, and a little more lemon. Then more distant pine needles, gingery charred oak and permanent marker pen (nikko pen).
Score: 4 out of 5.
Notes: Yet another great _.1 Octomore, with one hell of a nose! It's really surprisingly medicinal and all very Islay - and it's made with mainland peat, remember! One of the many surprising contradictions in whisky, the natural alchemy side of things, that is all part of the fun and helps to always keep things interesting. Octomore 10.1 will easily sit alongside the biggest, boldest whiskies that Southern Islay can muster - but as always it'll also stand apart. It certainly doesn't feel like the lowest ppm Octomore to date - which shows exactly how much weight those ppm figures carry: not much at all! It's quite a complex whisky overall, but it's also a drier, more medicinal and spicy (but not harsh or hot) style that is more 'Islay' than I remember the last few _.1 Octomores being. Which is of course no bad thing - this really rocks my boat!
These _.1 Octomores really are dependably great quality whiskies that always offer plenty of peat, plenty of flavour and plenty of power, and no two are really alike. You really do 'gotta catch (and taste) them all! This is a must-try for any Islay lover, as with all Octomore in my book. And if you're just settling in to higher strength peated whiskies and are looking to level up, 10.1 will certainly scratch that itch!
Cheers!
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