Following the Octomore 7.4 review, let’s keep the Bruichladdich theme for a little more while. Recently Bruichladdich released two new expressions, exclusively to the Travel Retail market and it was an interesting choice to release a young unpeated Laddie with a single digit age statement: the Bruichladdich Laddie Eight.
It it an interesting release for two reasons. The first one is that we have an age statement for young whisky instead of going the more familiar and used route of a NAS release. In fact, it’s the second major release this year to boast such an age after the Lagavulin 8 and both distilleries got praised for this practice of releasing a young whisky without being ashamed of it and I hope more will follow that route instead of the NAS one.
And the second reason is even more interesting if you recall that in the last few years there have been a world-wide supply shortage of Laddie 10 yo. In fact, it is now showing up only at the distillery shop and even that happens very sparingly. So this release, which is probably produced on a more limited base comparing to past Laddie 10 batches, may signal the re-appearance of Laddie 10 in 2-3 years.
And the Laddie Eight itself? As usual with Bruichladdich it carries a higher than usual ABV of 50%, unchill-filtered and the color is au natural.
Bruichladdich Laddie Eight (50%, £44.99)
Nose: Very malty at first with cereals porridge, whiffs of orange and tangerines at first, it’s salty beyond my expectations, dusty with limestone as well, honey and vanilla, cut ripe peaches and apricots , minuscule traces of peat smoke, With additional time it becomes cloudy way beyond dusty and deep inhales reveals the funky lactic laddie trademark, and lemon honey. Continue reading
Nose: Very closed and muted at first due to the high ABv but slowly heavy sweetness develops along with heavy flowered meadow, apricots and peaches grove, burnt toffee, a bit over-burnt caramel, coals and wood smoke, late night bonfire remnants, almost not peated after the active cask robbed the phenols for 7 years. 
Nose: Cereals and sherry, lots of vanilla, also sherry spices of cinnamon and nutmeg. Dusty and limestone notes like in many other Glen Garioch whiskies, rubber, ginger, a touch of perfume but also unsavorable lactic note and cheese. 
Nose: Spicy, very dusty as many other Glen Garioch whiskies, crisp ex-bourbon, honey, pickles (!) and after it opens up a bit, peat smoke which isn’t a big surprise being a pre-1995 distillate.
Nose: Ah, it’s very Glenmorangie at first with sweet honey, butterscotch, toffee, nutty with a dash of vanilla. Then come the sweet candied fruit, berries and tangerines, dry tannins and spice, sweet deep red hard candies (lollipops), bitter citrus peels. It’s tarty and jammy, even has a resemblance of roughness on the edge. Getting sweeter over time while maintaining the sweet candies feel.
Nose: Not exactly a textbook Mortlach nose with a fresh nose and not much of the meaty stuff. Instead there is a leathery note and apricots, a restrained storm of oak wood spice, honey and vanilla pudding and freshly sawed evergreen woods with dust, With time: more apricots but of the jammy type, with lemon peels and a soft perfume edge. 
Nose: Dusty, oh so dusty, much more dusty than the 15 yo, that I had to re-check the bottle for whisky turbidity. Vanilla and honey, traces of peat smoke (even here you can’t really escape it ah?), pears, peaches and golden apples. After a few more minutes in the glass, it gets less dusty (although it’s still there in big way), sweeter and fruitier. 
Whisky Gospel 