Different styles of smoky Islay Scotches
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- Опубліковано 5 лис 2019
- I've been drinking mostly peated Islay whisky since our visit earlier this year and began to notice patterns of typical styles across the distilleries. Sketched it down in a little matrix and thought it was worth sharing 🥃👍
Thanks for watching guys - please leave a like & comment if you've enjoyed!
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Best scotch channel on UA-cam. Absolutely killing it!
Cheers Dillon, I appreciate the kind words 👍🥃
Interesting! For me the biggest difference between them all are the degree of medicinal notes, with Laphroaig on top of that spectrum. I like your chart, Ben! It inpires me to try to detect more about the differences between the Islay distilleries myself 👍🏼👊🏻
I really like some of the medicinal flavours that come through on a lot of the Islay expressions but do find them to be somewhat inconsistent within any distilleries portfolio. For example; the Laphroaig 10 gives me loads of rubbery band-aids but the Lore and some Cairdeas bottles have next to non. Lagavulin I've found some rich iodine and others nothing like that. Do you find it consistent across the distilleries?
Thanks Ebbhead 🥃👍
Enjoyed that Ben. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Ive a few independent bottles of Caol Ila I'm enjoying at the moment, also was given a sample of their unpeated 15 year old to try.
Islay was such a great holiday, can't wait to try them all now!
You know the plan, lets get an evening sorted to sit down and relive them!
ps, you're designated driver for the next trip too 😜
we're getting accustomed to your very accurate and analytic whiskymind, Ben. Great video once again, you've realy managed to create your own style of whiksyvlogging and I absolutely love it!
Haha, I like the term 'whiskymind', I'll have to tell Jo that it's a real thing when I wont shut up about whisky next time 😜
Thanks menno whisky wiseguy, really appreciate the kind words! 🥃👍
Fantastic reviews Ben, you are truly a whisky geek. Also, nice hoodie!
Love the content, keep up the good work! Subscribed
Thanks for another nice video. We are going to visit Islay this year,
Another great one. I think everyone wants to enter the Peat Matrix.
well - I am still not sure about that
@@WhiskyJason1 Ha I did think of you Jason as I typed that.
I'm seeing Gaelic written in smoke drifting across damp dirt & moss... shame I never learnt Gaelic!
Cheers Phil 🥃👍
Really great content! Thanks for the knowledge!
Thanks Mauricio - happy to share! 🥃👍
Outstanding sir!
Cheers Bryan 🥃👍
Great to see them all visualised like that
Thanks Toby 🥃👍
Great content idea. Thanks!
Thanks stuff for work - happy to share! 🥃👍
Cheers Ben, that was full on geek!
Very interesting 👍
Thanks Chris!
🥃👍
Great video, this will be extremely helpful when I purchase my next islay.
Cheers Scott - happy to be of some help! 🥃👍
Very interesting, Ben!
I prefer using phrases such as medicinal, ashy, bonfire-like, and briny to characterize Islay´s types of smokiness.
Thanks Doc! I was trying to keep terms somewhat generic so they would apply to whole distilleries a little more aptly. There's so many different styles & flavours of smoky/earthy peat etc - think that's part of what makes Islay special! 🥃👍
@@WhiskyGeek I still don't see any reason to use the word "peaty" to describe aromas nor flavours. Peat is odorless and more or less tasteless (I tried some!). Only when peat is burning, it creates smoke and that's what impacts the whisky. There might be some earthiness in the taste of peat and that brings us back to your wording.
It's what the French call 'Terroir' ( Essentially local terrain or soil ) - it relates to food, alcohol and anything that comes out of the ground that is specific to geographical regions - a sense of place and the character of place that imbues that object with local character, not found or produced anywhere else. One might say this also relates to people and their Cultures - although the Globalists would have us think otherwise! I am a huge proponent of the 'Terroir' factor in Whisky - Regions and their engagement with components that make up a Whisky are inherently intrinsic to what identifies one from the other - it is this singular character that makes for a journey and TRUE diversity of smell, taste and flavour. It is when we industrialize and mechanize the processes of Whisky that real diversity and uniqueness of identity begin to suffer and ultimately disappear. We must insist on the preservation of 'Terroir' in Whisky production and resist the 'march of modernity' that simply wishes to fob us off with style over substance ... that is flashy marketing and poor quality spirit! Give the Distilleries feedback and let them know what we do and do not support.
Great effort.
Wonderful informative content!
Cheers
Thanks thegimel! 🥃👍
Great content, Ben! I do like comparing different peated whiskies when I can, and finding which sits with me best. Still haven't tried ALL Islay offerings.
The variation even within one distillery can be really interesting, especially when we're talking official bottlings vs independent bottlings too (I'm looking at you Laphroaig & Caol Ila)!
Even after 6 months of exploring Islay whiskies I still feel like there's hundreds more to try - great problem to have 😜
Cheers James 🥃👍
@@WhiskyGeek Yes, so much variation! And like some with Bowmore, Caol Ila, etc. often those independent bottlings are even better giving you the higher proof and NCF. Not a bad problem to have in a life of exploration ;) I'll try more if I have to! I actually haven't had any Caol Ila single malt, nor Port Charlotte, yet. Outrageous! ;)
Thanks for the straightforward graphics...
Thanks foodquig 🥃👍
Excellent as always. Love the star guest. I'm looking at both the Chieftain's 14yo Coal lla or the Signatory 12yo for this months addition. not decided which. I;m looking for close to natural as I can get. I love the Port Askaig but still not what it is. Also I have an Ardbeg 19 TB, when I open it I'll send Jo a sample. Cool.
That sounds amazing!!
Haha, you made Jo happy with that offer - I had to remind her it was the sample she compared against Caol Ila 18 (at first she was worried she was being tricked into something extra peaty haha) and then she was excited 😜
Mmm independently bottled Caol Ila sounds like a winner. Signatory has never disappointed me but I've not tried a Chieftain's yet. I doubt you'd be disappointed with either if the prices are sensible!
Thanks Malcolm 🥃👍
@@WhiskyGeek I'll PM you closer to the time I open them. More than happy to share a few silly purchases I've made this year with you. I like the passion you have for the spirit, it's an pleasure to share them.
This is great! If you want to go even deeper (no pun intended), you could explain peet at different levels of depth. In other words, the peet near the surface is much different than that further down in the ground.
I think I remember that coming up at either Laphroaig or Bowmore - when they cut their peat they take a certain amount of the 'top-peat' and a layer from below too. The more densely packed bottom layer is burned second as it offers less of the flavour bringing smoke but burns for longer. The top layer is burnt first to try and saturate the malt with the desired flavours.
As with so many things in Scotch - masses of variables to play with and that's why we have such diversity across the distilleries! I wonder if Bruichladdich would ever try a 'top-peat' vs 'second layer' comparison haha. Cheers Brandon 🥃👍
awesome information and loved seeing it in pictures! What do you call the medicinal/iodine/band aid smell etc?
Ahh medicinal flavours seem to come across to me very wide & varied so I didn't mention them here. I get a lot of it in some Laphroaig expressions and none in others, same for Lagavulin!
Band-aids - rubbery (though not sulphuric), touch of glue with an odd solventy-sterile element. All quite synthetic & chemically.
Iodine - a sharp minerality, peculiar sweetness with an almost citrus-perfumed solventy tone.
I think part of the problem is there is such diversity in what people have been exposed to in a hospital or first-aid kit which they now associate with 'medicinal'. For the most part it is unpleasant stuff trying to be made tolerable by masking it with cleaner-fluid like perfumes. For example; I only really know band-aids thanks to living in America for a year, over here in the UK we call them plasters and they're really different, quite neutral.
Short version: I didn't include it here as I find it's inconsistent from expression to expression and can mean quite different things to different people.
Cheers Mark 🥃👍
Great video, as usual.
Can you extend the video that includes other areas of Scotland? I am curious about where Tallisker and Aisla Bay etc would place themselves in your matrix.
That sounds like a fun follow-up, I'd have to get hold of some Glendronach & Benriach peated expressions too ... and Balvenie peat week ... and Benromach ... and Ballechin ... and and and 😜
I've got a couple of bottles of the Talisker waiting for me to get around to them. I wonder if the highland peat would overlap with this or require expansion.
Thanks Arne 🥃👍
And Ardmore?
Very informative episode Ben. Just recently opened my first Kilchoman (8th 100% Islay) and really enjoy the lower ppm that let all the other things come through, have a STR cask for later. Interesting that Port Charlotte is not using Islay peat but the 10 sure is good. Cheers
I think Kilchoman is a great example of a quality young whisky proving age isn't everything. I've heard the STR casks can be excellent 😁
Thanks Tim 🥃👍
Only had Carol Ila once, but it struck me as having a similar flavor profile to Ardbeg 10, just dialled down
That's a pretty good measure of things on the younger end of Caol Ila's offerings, sipping them side by side does expose the earthiness in Caol Ila's peat. Though they do seem to have a more obvious citrus fruit sweetness and less complexity. It's a shame Caol Ila chillfilter and colour their whisky ☹ The independently bottled stuff is even better 🥃👍
i'll probably get slaughtered for saying this, but i find i like laprhoiag 10 better than lagavulin 16. primarily because as you showed in the chart it's more smokey, maratime, and vegetal. potting soil is what i get from lagavulin, and i think the port casking increased the complexity, but makes it taste more bourbon like...
Great peat-matrix! Using Gaussian-elimination, one can solve the corresponding system of linear whisky equations and prove that Ben + peaty scotch = happy ;-)
All joking aside, that was a very informative video. Was that a 1L bottle of Bunnahabhain? Which expression was it?
Haha now that's a formula I can get behind!
Yeah that was the Cruach Mhona (Gaelic for 'peat stack'), a travel retail exclusive that comes in a 1L bottle 😁
Thanks Sascha 🥃👍
Mostly agree with your matrix, however I feel Caol ila overlaps with Ardbeg flavor profiles. And I might add medicinal taste profile to this matrix
You could be on to something there. I mistook the Caol Ila 12 for an Ardbeg last night in a blind tasting! Was the first time I have tried the 12 I think but a lot of similarities to an Ardbeg.
Medicinal is an interesting one, I feel it's somewhat inconsistent. Both in what it means to different people and in how it shows up in different distilleries expressions. Laphroaig 10 for example has a pungent rubbery band-aid flavour whereas the Lore and some Cairdeas bottlings seem to have little-to-non medicinal tones. Some cask strength Lagavulins I've found a briney iodine flavour and others nothing like that.
Cheers Adam 🥃👍
Good channel, great content. Only one thing bothers me.. veh-juh-tl. Repeat after me.. veh-juh-tl 🤷🏼♂️
I've now been saying 'veh-juh-tuh-blz' and winding my wife up 😜
Thanks 80nrc 🥃👍
Haha 😂 you’re a good sport.
And congratulations on the birth of your baby👍🏻
Which is the most medicinal Scotch you have tasted?
For medicinal flavours I'd be looking at Laphroaig. I always associate medicinal with things like TCP or iodine rather than 'bandaids' - a sterile rubbery smell.
For the most medicinal it was probably a cask strength Laphroaig that had been finished in a sherry cask, I can't remember which expression but think it was an official bottling. The sweetness of the sherry cask & strength of the spirit helped push it towards those iodine flavours 👍
Remind me where you stayed in Islay...
We stayed in one of the Bowmore cottages, got a decent price for a week and it was nice and central so easy to explore from 👍
@@WhiskyGeek what month did you visit?
@@AMMA-Das We went in March 😊
@@joannaclarkson6432 nice time. I remember you said the weather was still a bit rough.
@@AMMA-Das yeah we had an amazing time, it was still quite windy and wet but was generally nice.
Maybe it is the language barrier, but I am not sure what you mean by 'vegetal' honestly. Is that similar to cereal or grassy, or something else completely ?
Hi Aeror, yeah that's pretty much it. Vegetal is kind of a blanket term for things relating to vegetable (and some plant) matter, so anything like cereals, grassy, vegetables or even moss could be covered by that. It's easy for there to be some overlap with maritime (seaweed for example) or earthy (damp moss or raw root vegetables).
@@WhiskyGeek Thanks for clarifying, Ben. I am with you on the Kilchoman 100% Islay then. The cereal notes stand out with dry hay and biscuits. Bring on that farmyard boogie! Cheers!
will you really ever acknowledge the existence of whisky outside of Islay - or was that just a joke?? :-)
I've heard there are whole other regions making whisky, and other countries even! 😜👍