This ‘shampoo bottle’ may look weird, depending on who you ask, but who cares? It’s one of our go-to peated malts.

It’s everything but the casual peated Islay-whisky and beautifully complex. As lovers of the Octomore range, we often speak of this as ‘Octomore Light’. It doesn’t provide that oily thickness, and is certainly not that complex, but for about half the price you’ll get a hint of what Octomore has to offer. Of course, the peat levels are much lower, but as we already pointed out several times: the peat in Octomore isn’t really that profound in the end product. Much gets lots in the distilling process, it’s integrated very well and it contributes to the superb complexity. If you come across a 7.1 or 7.2, do yourself a favour and grab it, they’re among the best we’ve had so far.

Now back to Port Charlotte 10yo. It has matured on first-fill (65%) and second-fill (10%) American Oak and second-fill French wine barriques (25%). In our opinion, the wine casks work very well in this example. The whisky is bottled at 50% ABV and tastes like this:

Many established, but also lots of crazy flavours in here, just as we like it! Have you tried the Port Charlotte 10yo? And if so: did you like it too?