Last review was a Bruichladdich Port Charlotte and on its heels is another peated Bruicladdich review. This time, the latest offering in the Octomore series – Octomore 7.2

Like in previous Octomore releases, the x.2 suffix means some fancy/special wine finish (For example: Octomore 6.2 was Cognac finish) and this time it’s a Syrah wine (from the Northern Rhone Valley) finish.

Bruichladdich Octomore 7.2 (58.5%, €154.99)

Nose: Restrained and smooth peat, vanilla, sweet red berries that slowly develop into a formidable dry red wine impact but the it’s beautifully balanced with the peat. There’s a strong back-end of cereals and fruity notes supporting this all. Due to the high ABV I tried it with a few drops of water and it’s showing more cereal and barley, lighter peat and weaker wine impact.

Palate: strong sweetness mix of peat, fruits and red wine, quickly followed by smoke and ash. then a quick cut to wine tannins and then they all mix together. well crafted! With some water: more peat and cereal, more drying and less wine/fruits.

Finish: Long finish with peat, red fruits (blackberries, strawberry, the whole mix!) and red wine tannins. With water it’s drier more cereal and oak impact of honey and sugar.

Thoughts: Oh mama, this is one serious Octomore. Personally I prefer the 6.2 over this one. Like I said before on the blog numerous times, whisky and wine finish is a hard thing to do right. Finding the proper and delicate between them is tough job and the retiring master distiller Jim McEwan did a splendid work here, just like he did with the Black Art series. Due to some distribution weirdness, bottles of Octomore 7.2 were available through some normal retail shops for a very affordable price despite it being a Travel Retail exclusive and so, of course I snagged a bottle. I think we’ll dearly miss Mr McEwan work in the future…