It’s a very slow Sunday here so I think it’s a good time to review a punchy whisky to wake up the spirit and eventually I settled on some heavily peated whisky. Yes you guessed right – an Octomore. I have a few of those ready to be published so let’s review Octomore 8.4 today. I know it’s not a recent release (we already have the 9.x series out there for a while and the 10.x series coming soon) but since it’s still available out there for purchase, why not?

It’s the x.4 designation and it means that Otomore 8.4 is matured in virgin oak casks. But it’s not so simple or straight forward. Pay attention: 20% were matured in virgin oak casks and 80% were matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks and then finished in second-fill virgin oak but those second-fill casks are in fact the Octomore 7.4 virgin oak casks! So even if it’s 8 years old, it should retain some of the Phenols as the barley was peated to 170ppm and we don’t have 100% turbo charged casks to suck all the Phenols.

Octomore 8.4 (Masterclass) (58.7%, £150/€148)

Nose: Vanilla and lemon, very sweet. Coconut and sweet oak extracts, sweet peat, even a bit aggressive peat. seaside air and saltiness. After a few minutes there’s also sweet smoke, brine, vinegar and spiciness led by cloves and cinnamon.

Palate: Sweet peat, corned beef in sweet sauce, BBQ  meat, charred oak, burnt wood smoke, very earthy, a bit of cinnamon, white pepper, brine and salt.

Finish: Medium long length and quite sweet, peat, vanilla, smoke, and salt in the background.

Thoughts: This is not bad at all. It definitely retained enough peat punch even after 8 years and the sweetness isn’t cloying. It’s rich, sweet and smoky with a very good balance, really liked it.