Four randomized brackets, one grand finale and sixteen Islay whiskies in a blind test shoot-out later, this is the summarization of a Saturday night filled with peat smoke, music and good company.

So, how do you really know that your favourite whisky is the right one? I say that you’ll never really know before you’ve tasted it blind stacked up against a bunch of similar ones. We’ve now done four of these huge blind tests (16 Bowmores, 16 Bourbons, 16 Speyside 12 YOs and now, 16 different Islay expressions) and my general conclusion drawn from these is that the results often matches your expectations, but in some way or another totally throws your previous perceptions right out of the window.

And that is exactly what happened, but I suspect it was due to a specific reason this time. The peat. When doing the shoot-out, the peatiness just kind of blurred together. It was in some cases hard to distinguish between the nuances of the smoky flavours. That made this more of a battle of cask influence instead of a battle of the most luscious, thick peat notes (or both). There are whiskies in this shoot-out which has the peat as its main attribute and I assume they suffered a bit due to this and made them harder to recognize (and maybe portrayed them as inferior to their pierce because of that). But still, as you will see, they most of them still held their character throughout the test.

The line-up

When we select line-ups we always search for variety within a certain set of preconditioned parameters. We wanted to have all well-established Islay distilleries included. We also wanted to have a variety in casks, peat levels and ABV. The most important thing was to have a lot of core range whiskies, but to have them compete against special releases to see if they are as special as they are portrayed.

Lastly, we (of course) were restricted to whiskies we own and were able to buy. That’s why we ended up with these contestants:

Ardbeg 10 YO
Ardbeg An Oa
Ardbeg Uigeadail
Big Peat Christmas -17
Bowmore 10 YO – Insp. by the Devil’s Casks
Bowmore 10 YO – Tempest VI
Bowmore 15 YO
Bunnahabhain Mòine
Caol Ila 12 YO
Kilchoman Sanaig
Lagavulin 8 YO
Lagavulin 16 YO
Laphroaig 10 YO
Laphroaig Triple Wood
Laphroaig Quarter Cask
Octomore_8.2 Masterclass

*As a side note to the selection of Bowmores: We already did a shoot-out with sixteen different Bowmore expressions and the 10 YO – inspired by the devil’s casks was my friend’s winner, the Tempest VI was my winner and the Bowmore 15 YO was the only whisky we both took to the finale. That’s why those were the ones that ended up in the shoot-out line-up.

The favourites and the dislikes

This is sixteen extremely tasty whiskies. I love almost all of them on its own so when it comes to favourites this is really hard. Bowmore Tempest VI is one of my all-time favourite whiskies. It really shows what Bowmore can do when they make a whisky without the need of marketing, e150a and chill filtering. I would also say that Laphroaig Triple Wood would be on my top three list beforehand. The last one on my favourite list would probably be the Ardbeg Uigeadail, or maybe the Lagavulin 16, or maybe… You get the drift.

On the other side of the spectrum, the ones that were slightly below the others going in to this would be Bunnahabhain Mòine and Caol Ila 12 YO. The Mòine seems to me like it could use a year or two more in the cask and the Caol Ila is a little too sweet for my palate.

When it comes to my friend, I don’t think we really discussed his favourites beforehand, but his go-to used to be the Lagavulin 16 YO. I also know he loves the Octomore and the Bowmore 10 YO – Inspired by the Devil’s casks won his side of the Bowmore shoot-out, so I know he really likes this one. By looking at his shelves, it seems that he nowadays favours Laphroaig as his go-to Islay brand. He definitely agreed that there were no bad whiskies in the line-up as well. There were some expressions included which he hadn’t tasted before, but he had experience from all distilleries included and access to information on cask types etcetera.

The impossible side quest

We tend to give ourselves extra challenges when doing these sort of things, and this time we made it a really hard one. We tried to identify all the whiskies before revealing the results. If you have done some blind testing, you know that this is basically an impossible quest. I will reveal the results in the last part of the article.

The method and the preparations

If you are interested in how we prepare, and which method we use to make this a truly random test, the full rundown can be found in paragraphs 2 and 3 in the Bowmore shoot-out article. We did the same thing this time. The short version is that we randomize sixteen samples into four brackets. The four winners of those move on to a final bracket, and then the best whisky is chosen. The four whiskies in the final aren’t necessarily the four best ones, but the winner will be the one that stands out.

Bracket 1

I. Octomore_8.2 Master Class
F. Bowmore 10 YO – Insp. by the Devil’s Casks
E. Bunnahabhain Mòine
A. Caol Ila 12 YO

Reflections
The first thing that was truly obvious in this bracket was that it was divided into two parts because of the cask maturation. The Octomore and the Bowmore are both very heavy influenced by “speciality casks”. By that I mean that they stray from the classic bourbon/sherry spectrum, which is so common in scotch today. The other side, with the Bunnahabhain and the Caol Ila, is very much in the middle of standard ex-bourbon maturation. How did this affect the outcome? Well, both of us put the Octomore as the winner. It is a fantastic dram that has both power and a well-balanced range of flavours. It has the high ABV going for it and, in this case, it really did matter because of the draw for the brackets. This landed as the first whisky of the day (The longer the test progresses, the harder it is to detect ABV levels and peat nuances).

When it came down to our second places, there was a surprise. It was very obvious that my friend was in favour of the Bowmore since it is one of his favourites, but I had the same feeling about it this time that I had when we did the 16 Bowmore shoot-out; The cask influence sits on top like a lid and it doesn’t feel like it’s integrated into the whisky. This feels a bit strange to me and, even though I really like most Bowmore releases, this falls a bit short. The surprise was that I put Bunnahabhain in second place. As I mentioned earlier it’s one of those whiskies which seem to need a year or two more in the cask. But here it felt fresh, fruity and uplifting and felt very vibrant. It’s weird what you find in whiskies when you put them in a different context. The Caol Ila didn’t make much of a ruckus and because the peat nuances disappear quickly, which means that it just came out a bit flat.

My result
1. Octomore_8.2 Master Class
2. Bunnahabhain Mòine
3. Bowmore 10 YO – Inspired by the Devil’s Casks
4. Caol Ila 12 YO

My friend’s result
1. Octomore_8.2 Master Class
2. Bowmore 10 YO – Inspired by the Devil’s Casks
3. Caol Ila 12 YO
4. Bunnahabhain Mòine

Bracket 2

J. Ardbeg An Oa
G. Lagavulin 16 YO
P. Ardbeg 10 YO
D. Laphroaig Triple Wood

Reflections
I tend to prefer older whiskies to their younger counterparts. When it comes to peat, that often means that some of the peatiness is dulled down due to cask influence. The Lagavulin 16 YO is a very well-balanced whisky overall. It has a great cask profile and an ashy peatiness that is easily recognizable. If they had upped the ABV to a decent standard it would probably be one of my absolute favourites. Even though it’s lacking in ABV, it still beat all the others in this bracket including one of my favourites going in to this exercise.

My friend put the Laphroaig in first place. The Laphroaigs otherwise had a hard time in this the shoot-out since they rely heavily on their rowdy and vivid peatiness and as I stated earlier most of the nuances in the peat influence gets blurry when trying many peaty whiskies at the same time. There’s really not much to say about him putting it first though, or how the two Ardbegs came in second and third. It’s not surprising that he put the An Oa before the 10 YO either, since he generally likes a bit of sherry influence in his whiskies. The most interesting part is that he put one of his old work horses last. In this bracket, the other ones in the group clocks in at 46 % and above and the Lagavulin did suffer a bit because of the ABV, which might have been a factor. It’s just one of those things that pops up in blind shoot-outs – Sometimes your old heroes die and new ones arise to take their places.

Anyways, let’s talk Ardbeg. I think the reason why the two ‘begs ended up last in my bracket lies in the importance of cask influence. When the peatiness is all blurry, the casks are so important. I really like Ardbeg, but I’ve never really been passionate about the ones I’ve tried. This is the two expressions at the bottom of their core range and they didn’t have what it took to match the other two expressions but it was a very close race. This bracket was the one I thought was the hardest to judge due to how good all four contestants were.

My result
1. Lagavulin 16 YO
2. Laphroaig Triple Wood
3. Ardbeg 10 YO
4. Ardbeg An Oa

My friend’s result
1. Laphroaig Triple Wood
2. Ardbeg An Oa
3. Ardbeg 10 YO
4. Lagavulin 16 YO

Bracket 3

H. Kilchoman Sanaig
O. Laphroaig Quarter Cask
L. Big Peat Christmas -17
K. Bowmore 15 YO

Reflections
This bracket offered a great range of different Islay expressions. For me, the Bowmore 15 YO stood out in just about every aspect except peat intensity. It is a great dram and I do love Bowmore and their exceptional fruitiness/peat combination. The only thing this expression lacks is a bit of ABV to give it the extra power. But, even at the relatively low ABV, it packs a lot of flavour. The Kilchoman came in second, and it is a truly stunning dram with a great balance between the different components. These two were clearly the two in front in this bracket.

The Big Peat has an incredibly meaty bacon flavour and I recognized it clearly. It’s a good dram but it lacks in age and cask influence. Laphroaig Quarter Cask came last, even though this is one of my favourite “f*ck you” whiskies. To me it offers nothing but trouble. There’s no fruitiness and no finesse at all, which makes it fantastic in its own right. The problem with these two whiskies is the same as I mentioned earlier; When you have a lot of different peaty drams one after another the nuances of the peat sort of blends together and transfer between sips even though things like rinses, coffee beans and neutral crackers are used. This means that their main attraction is subdued and somewhat gets unfairly treated.

Quite unexpectedly, my friend sent the Big Peat to the finals. Afterwards he said that this and the Bowmore was clearly two of his favourites in this bracket. I could have sworn that it would be the Kilchoman, with a great sherry/peat mix (and it’s one of his whiskies used in this shoot-out). It’s always great to see the unexpected results when doing blind tastings.

My result
1. Bowmore 15 YO
2. Kilchoman Sanaig
3. Big Peat Christmas -17
4. Laphroaig Quarter Cask

My friend’s result
1. Big Peat Christmas -17
2. Bowmore 15 YO
3. Kilchoman Sanaig
4. Laphroaig Quarter Cask

Bracket 4

N. Ardbeg Uigeadail
C. Lagavulin 8 YO
B. Laphroaig 10 YO
M. Bowmore Tempest VI

Reflections
Let’s start from behind when looking at this bracket. The Laphroaig 10 YO was very far behind all the other ones, mostly because it ended up competing with three powerhouses. This is the first time I’ve tasted a Laphroaig and thought that it was bland. It’s weird to say this about an old friend, but I do think that this was the least favourable whisky in the entire line-up. It’s still a great dram, but it just doesn’t play in the same league as the other expressions.

If we look at the other three, the Bowmore is one of my absolute favourites, and it held up nicely against the others. To me, it was basically a dead race between the Ardbeg and the Lagavulin, but I tend to prefer ex-bourbon to ex-sherry casks, so I think that was the main reason for the final decision.

Looking at my friend’s list it offers no big surprises really. The peat/ex-sherry combination of the Uigeadail is very much the core of his preferred flavour profile. When it comes to the selection between the Bowmore and the Lagavulin we never really discussed the way he put them. He did agree that the Laphroaig was way behind in this bracket though.

My result
1. Bowmore Tempest VI
2. Lagavulin 8 YO
3. Ardbeg Uigeadail
4. Laphroaig 10 YO

My friend’s result
1. Ardbeg Uigeadail
2. Bowmore Tempest VI
3. Lagavulin 8 YO
4. Laphroaig 10 YO

The grand finale

My final bracket
G. Lagavulin 16 YO
I. Octomore_8.2 Masterclass
K. Bowmore 15 YO
M. Bowmore Tempest VI

My result
1. Bowmore Tempest VI
2. Octomore_8.2 Masterclass
3. Lagavulin 16 YO
4. Bowmore 15 Y0

My friend’s final bracket
L. Big Peat Christmas -17
I. Octomore_8.2 Masterclass
N. Ardbeg Uigeadail
D. Laphroaig Triple Wood

My friend’s result
1. Ardbeg Uigeadail
2. Octomore_8.2 Masterclass
3. Laphroaig Triple Wood
4. Big Peat Christmas -17

Reflections
The results are kind of expected but with some small twists. We can start with my love for Bowmore Tempest Batch VI. It’s been my favourite whisky for a long time (now surpassed by some Springbank releases though). It is an amazing whisky with great cask influence and a big bucket of tropical fruits and some peat to stand on. It’s really sad that there won’t be a batch VII. It was closely followed by the Octomore though, which is an amazing concoction of various cask types and a hefty peatiness. It definitely wins the most original and outside of the box awards. It just sits in its own category. These two shined the brightest in the entire shoot-out and they are easily recognizable even in a line-up of 16 peated whiskies.

When we come to the bottom half of my final, it clearly shows that age matters. Both the Lagavulin 16 YO and the Bowmore 15 YO are classic Islay expressions and they do deliver. They are not as explosive in taste and texture as the special releases, but they do offer a more mature and polite side with well-aged spirit and nice cask influence. In a line-up of mostly rowdy thugs, these stand out as two more sophisticated gentlemen.

Lastly, a look at my friend’s finale. The Ardbeg Uigeadail took the top spot, which, I presume, is a result that many Islay fans would agree on when presented with this line-up. It is a very well-made whisky and it’s very impressive that Ardbeg has it as a standard core range release. His second place were the same as mine, the Octomore, and this makes it the most popular whisky in the shoot-out. And then in third place, he chose the Laphroaig TripleWood, which was one of my favourites going in to this exercise. And then in last place, the biggest twist in the entire shoot-out: The Big Peat Christmas Edition. When I first brought this for my friend to taste a year ago he really didn’t like it. But, palates and preferences change over time.

The impossible side quest
The results of this exercise were quite satisfying. Since there was no possibility to go back to the whiskies in previous brackets to compare this surely was an impossible quest. Still I managed to identify 9 out of the 16 whiskies correctly. My friend managed to get 5 answers correct.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and make sure to do this yourself.

William

Published 2020-01-03