Whisky : Octomore 6 Year Renegade Series “Epione”

Country/Region : Scotland/Islay

ABV : 50%

Cask : Ex-Sauternes (Yquem)

Age : 6 Years (Bottled 2014)

Nose : Maritime, fruity, and herbal.  Soft notes of ocean breezes, beach sand, and seaside smoked tako.  The wife described it as smoked salmon— smokey, fatty, fishy, and full of Omega-3s.  Subtle fruits came into focus with lemon oil and youth soccer halftime orange slices.  A faint chemical-herbal note, almost like sunscreen or bug spray, lingered in the background with burnt out charcoal.

Palate : Medium to light body with sweet citrus, salt, and herbs.  Sweet notes of honey braised carrots and parsnips, toasted herbs, sea salt, creamy apple butter, and nectarine jam.  Faintly malty and oddly herbal notes hung in the background along with faint tobacco ash.  The wife described those notes as horehound candy— a sort of herbal/menthol, licorice, and root-beer flavored candy that can be slightly bitter.

Finish : Lingering citrus oils and salt.

Score : 4

Mental Image : Salmon Smoke Break

Notes : A bespoke bottling of Octomore for former Bruichladdich CEO Mark Reynier, this was one part of the “Renegades” bottles along with “Meleagar.”  The barley for this cask was peated to 162.5 PPM which really surprised me as when I initially blindly tasted this I thought this was a lightly peated Caol Ila.  I am happy to report that during my blind tasting of this I did at least identify it as an Islay single malt, but I was not even close to guessing this was a young Octomore.

There were some weird notes lurking the background and on the whole this was kinda of strange.  I was really intrigued by the idea of horehound candy, so I ordered those off the internet right away so I could figure out what my wife was thinking about and sure enough the menthol/root beer combination of the candy was a fair match for the some the sweeter herbal notes.

Overall, this was more interesting than it was good.  I think the somewhat light mouthfeel on this holds it back a bit, if it were a bit heavier it might have registered a few points higher.  I was not a huge fan of the almost ash-tray quality of the tobacco smoke on the palate and, while I am sure some will really enjoy this, the connections my brain drew up were less than pleasant.