“Character of Islay” – Ardbeg, Octomore

You thought we were done with Atom Brands? No chance! I simply had to go back to explore their “Character of Islay” range! From their Stories of Wind & Wave series, there were two distinct offerings.

Alas like the others, at Whisky Live Paris it was a mere sniff and swish, so forgive the brief impressions… That’s the beauty and danger of festival offerings…

Ardbeg 15 year (2004) 54.9% Bottle 012

  • Nose – Robust character, proper peat with smoked meats, something herbal too
  • Palate – A delicious meaty treat, peppery
  • Finish – Long and strong

Can I just say – yum! This came at the close of my 1st day and was definitely the direction to wind up a fabulous day of tasting adventures. Particularly as it came after the Lagg masterclass where I was well primed for something peaty!

If you want this for yourself, may need to track it down at a fest as it seems to be sold out! However, it was once available for Approx GBP 315.

Octomore 9 year (2011) 50% Bottle 140

  • Nose – Fruit forward then heat, sea breeze, and vanilla cream
  • Palate – Burst of flavour – peat and then shifts quickly to fruity sweet, then more peat and sweet
  • Finish – Fab all the way through the finish

I wasn’t alone in becoming a fan of this dram. A well-known Parisian chocolatier pronounced this the specific whisky he wants to use for his next single malt singular chocolate. Oh la la!

What a wonderful opportunity to try this powerful yet eminently quaffable dram from Bruichladdich. It may be tricky to find, however, it once retailed for GBP 187.

What a fabulous way to wind up my exploration of Atom Brands:

If you don’t want to miss a post, why not follow Whisky Lady on:

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.