Islay Whisky Academy founder, Rachel MacNeill, gets up close and personal with the first IWA bottling, an exquisite single malt from one of the island’s most popular distilleries…

The whisky was matured for 18 years in a bourbon cask. The malt was peated to 40ppm. Bottling strength is 48.2%

Colour: Old pale gold. Like a loved Mother’s wedding ring.

Movement: Slow, evenly spaced, languorous, sensual teardrops/legs.

Initial notes: Gorse flowers on a warm sunny day – vanilla and coconut. Milk Chocolate.  Tar and Honey. A fizzing sweetness. Fresh asparagus poached in salted butter.

Cigar smoke. Sweet vanilla honeycomb. Wet dog fur! Blancmange. Triangle-cut white bread, crustless cheese sandwiches. Dusty layer, old stones with sunshine dust motes swirling.

Creamy, oily, salted crème caramel. Sticking your head in an old wooden beehive hanging with fresh honeycomb frames.

American cream soda. A sweet, buttery open aspect. Thin, crumbling, speckled blue egg shells on a stony shore after the chicks have hatched. Peat swirls through the liquid, weaving around, bringing a counterpoint to the mellow, sweet notes. 

Fresh Comfrey plant leaves growing in the cool, damp floor of a wood.  A buzz from the alcohol fills your nose. Fresh cream whipped with flecks of lemon and orange zest.

Palate: Oak and Peat at the back of the mouth. Like drinking a vanilla and honey ice cream float while sitting under a Scots Pine Tree on a dappled sunshine day.

This dram is vertically layered with a complex and delicate sweetness swirling through rich, creamy liquid, leavened by mellow peat holding the structure in balance. It is softer and more sophisticated than a conventional Port Charlotte, partly due to the abv of 48.2% and its mature 18 Years.

Mouthfeel: The liquid moves in the mouth like rich, smooth satin. Swirling around like the journey of a bee flitting from flower to flower.

Sweet notes forward, dark peat notes open up at the back of the mouth and top of the throat.

The liquid glides down to a mellow maturity in the chest.