BEFORE & AFTER; A PAIR OF CLASSIC ‘LADDIES
We are all friends here, so let’s start with some pronunciation for anyone who might be new to the Islay whisky scene (they exist!). Islay is pronounced Aye-La and Bruichladdich is Bru-clad-ee.
The Bruichladdich distillery is one of the iconic Islay distilleries and internationally renowned. But that wasn’t always the case. The distillery closed in 1993 and it was only saved from going the way of many other Islay distilleries when it was bought by a consortium in 2001. Distilling resumed in May 2001 and the Bruichladdich distillery have spent the last two decades innovating and establishing themselves as one of the most versatile distilleries in Scotland.
We consider whisky from the Bruichladdich distillery to be one of the core classics and are excited to share this pair with you as our first releases.
THE ‘LADDIE PAIR
For Cheaper By The Dram REF #01 and #02 we really couldn’t think of anything more apt than a the Bruichladdich distillery’s own inaugural release of their renowned Octomore range combined with a taste of their classic unpeated single malt from before their temporary closure.
Expression 1.1 is by no means the most peated whisky produced in the Octomore range; it is ‘only’ peated to 131 PPM compared to the record breaking 309 PPM of Expression 8.3. It did launch the Bruichladdich distillery’s super peated range which offers an innovative counterpoint to the classic unpeated malts and the medium peated malts offered by the distillery. We therefore consider it to be a piece of Islay whisky history and a great dram to try for anyone who enjoys Islay malts and or peated malt whisky.
While Islay whisky may be renowned for its peated maritime flavours, peated whisky is not the classic style of the Bruichladdich distillery. A classic dram of ‘Laddich offers a fresh grassy style with unpeated maritime notes, we chose a bottle from the 1980s to offer an interesting counterpoint to the more modern Octomore expression 1.1.
Cheaper By The Dram REF #01 and REF#02 are due for release on the 16th October 2019. Make sure you sign up to our mailing list to receive exclusive access to the release 24hours before they go live to the general public.
