Monday is here and time for another tasting notes post. This time, another Compass Box whisky – their popular and successful The Peat Monster.
Last year, the Peat Monster celebrated the Tenth Anniversary and a special release was released to celebrate the event, but we shouldn’t forget the original one!
The Peat Monster is made from a marriage of an Islay malt,
a peated malt, a peated malt from the Isle of Mull
and a smoky Speyside malt (must be some Ardmore ah?)
Compass Box The Peat Monster (46%, buy here for £37.95)
Nose: Burning coals, salty sea spray and earthy Islay peat feeling (Caol Ila?), cereal and grains, sweet stewed fruits and honey, chimney smoke.
Palate: Starts with strong ashes and oak wood taste and later on a sweet concentrated oranges and floral/herbal notes joins in. Some marinated BBQ meat note.
Finish: Long finish, lingering notes of of sweet, peat and floral notes. some residue of spices.
Conclusion: Nice and quite complex peated blend. Yet again Compass Box managed to produce a very balanced peated blended whisky – full of peat but not overpowering along with sweet notes of fruits and honey and a dash of herbal/floral dusting. Liked it, a rock solid dram.
(Official sample from the Compass Box Whisky Company)
Whisky Gospel 
Hi Yoav, Nice review, Ardmore however is in the Highland region, BenRiach and Tomintoul (Old Ballantruan) are both regularly peated speysiders though I’m sure plenty other speyside distilleries produce peated batches – the strangest I’ve had was a peated Mortlach which was equal parts peat and mint. My guess would be Caol Ila, Ledaig and Ballantruan…?
Hmm, could be and I guess we’ll never know.
But I found Ardmore reference here: http://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/compass-box-the-peat-monster-whisky/
Hmmm… Caol Ila a splash of Laphroaig/Lagavulin or Ardbeg (in order of probability) and a dollop of Ardmore then… I suppose that’s all part of the fun of vatted malts! 🙂
Hi Yoav, Gregg Glass told us that Peat Monster currently is approximately 60/20/20 Laphroaig/Ledaig/Ardmore (definitely peated Ardmore), they used to use Caol Ila (instead of Laphroaig) but they also initially made it relatively a lot less peaty, as tastes have changed and with changes in availability of Caol Ila of the quality they needed they have shifted to Laphroaig. Gregg also told us that they have been buying new make (including Caol Ila) and maturing it in their own ex-Buffalo Trace barrels – we got a little shot of both the Caol Ila new make and after 1yr maturation in their own casks. Presumably this is to future-proof their blending sources…He hinted that in future they may move back to Caol Ila replacing Laphroaig in the mix. The average age of the malts used was around 9-11 years – all bourbon cask matured, mostly 1st fill but possibly some refill/rejuvenated cask.
Thanks a lot Barry for that extra information – very enlightening!
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