Bruichladdich Port Charlotte PC7 Sin An Doigh Ileach

Thanks to /u/devoz for sharing this one with me.

So I’m with Devoz and he thinks “Hey, TOModera has skipped some Port Charlottes. I better remedy that.”

And like any playthrough of any Final Fantasy game, he has plenty of remedies at the end of the day.

Bruichladdich Port Charlotte PC7 Sin An Doigh Ileach is the 3rd in the PC line, released in the 7th year of making Port Charlotte, the peated line at Bruichladdich (that isn’t super peated). Like others, this is made up of multiple barrels, however they didn’t give us the specifics.

The Gaelic this time means, according to the website “It’s the Islay way, and may it never change.” Or rather that’s what’s written. Google Translate tells me “That’s the way”, which may mean that it has a Dire Straits stuck in it’s head.

Rather this is a dedication to all the hard workers who lived on an Island before all the modern conveniences of today made it liveable. Honestly I’d be freaking out the second the Wi-Fi was slow.

Let’s see how this tastes, shall we?

Price: No longer available

Region: Islay

Age: 7 years

Number of Bottles: 24,000

Abv: 61%

Colour: 2.5Y 8/10

Nose: Bread, funk, creme brulee, cherry foam, brine, lemon soap

Interesting, young whisky. What they’ve been able to coach from this is quite impressive, and reminds me of a Kilchoman at the age. They’ve coached some funk from it. It’s still brash for a young whisky, though there’s some surprising elements.

Love the light cherries here. And the amount of molasses that’s developed.

Taste: Salty caramel, anise syrup, nutmeg, canned pears

Gone are the young, bread forward funk and acidity, here now we have… a syrup based mouthfeel and lots of spice? More Autumn flavours?

Odd, that’s for certain. Nothing save the caramel and brine ties the two together. You at least get that tenuous rope to climb back. That said, I’m a sucker for Autumn, so my bias is showing and I don’t care.

Finish: Brine, cloves, cinnamon, pear, brown butter, grass

Better transition here, even with my bias. The brine comes first, the spice ties back, and the grass isn’t a huge surprise (especially at the parties I go to).

Again, Autumn flavours abound. The peat has morphed well into cinnamon and cloves, which I prefer.

Conclusion: I went into this expecting, as one does from a “working on it” dram, a whisky that still needed work. What I ended up with is a whisky that only has to tie the nose to the taste and finish more concisely, with lots of Autumn flavours filling in the blanks.

This is a spicy flavour bomb. Good brine, good caramel, and an odd, fun nose. I have to take off marks for the nose not selling me correctly on the rest, however only a few. This was very nice to drink, and makes me interested in the rest of the PC line more than as a curiosity.

84/100

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