Whisky : Finlaggan Cask Strength

Country/Region : Scotland/Islay

ABV : 58%

Cask : Ex-Bourbon (?)

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ HWG Series #3

Nose : Fire!  Burning tar, a beach bonfire, a chemical fire, an oil lamp— where there is smoke there is fire.  There are bits of corroded batteries— copper, chemical, and smelling a bit of rust.  Lovely meat turning on a spit over an open flame.  The smoke is vaguely salty and chemical, but more than anything it is sinus-clearlingly herbal.

Palate :  The industrial fire leads off— hot metal and burning chemicals.  However the body is not all smoke and fire; sweeter desserts come to front— toasted sugar and heavily caramelized custard.  The overall body is pretty light with just enough oily character to really spread different sorts of sweet and bitter smokey notes across the palate.  There is an almost waxy character— a hot candle wax right after the wick has been extinguished.  Bits of salt and smoke remind me of a smoked cheese.

Finish :  Lingering charred herbs and salt.

Score : 4

Mental Image : A dumpster fire; but like a classy dumpster where someone threw away a bunch of rosemary.

Something Better : Bunnahabhain SMWS 10.127 (very similar palate, more mature, more balanced)

Something Similar : Paul John Bold (similar layers of smoke & peat, more spice, more pleasant finish)

Something Worse : Kilchoman Machir Bay (some similar herbal notes, more tobacco, less body)

Notes :  This was the sole properly peated dram at the last whisky tasting event and boy was it divisive.  Those few peatheads present found it to be a bit tame— not the most exciting peated dram of the week, but still something pleasant to enjoy.  Those who came for the subtle and mild Japanese whiskies, the sweet honeyed bourbons, or the spicy ryes, seemed to have a more extreme reaction in the opposite direction.  I saw a number of coughs and sour faces.  This was a bottle very much unlike all the others and its brash young peat was a bit much for the uninitiated— or the unsuspecting.  After sipping on mellow and sweet fare, I think some drinkers were not expecting the wonderful intensity of the Finlaggen which lingered on the palate as bitter smoldering herbs.

I quite enjoyed it.  Finlaggan is a well priced mystery malt from Islay.  Its youth shines in the bottle— there is no mistaking this for an older more mature and well rounded malt.  As mystery bottles go there are only so many distilleries that Finlaggan could be sourced from, or contract distill with— I imagine that they change from batch to batch, at least that would be one way to account for the shifting character of spirit between bottles.  If I had to guess, this particular Finlaggan Cask Strength strikes me as a young heavily peated Bunnahabhain.  The flavor profile, especially the burnt herbs, remind me of some of the other young heavily peated Bunna’s that I have had.  Best guess for this bottle would be Caol Ila or Bunnahabhain anyway as they both do quite a bit of cask sales and contract distilling whereas some of the other Islay distilleries have shifted away from this income stream while the scotch market remains hot.