Port Charlotte is the heavily peated imprint of Islay distillery Bruichladdich. I've seen a few different Port Charlotte varieties - Scottish Barley, Islay Barley, Feis Ile, and others - but before now I'd only had the now-discontinued The Peat Project, which had a deeply flawed nose but had very savory flavors.
Well, the Scottish barley corrects the nose portion, as we'll discover in a bit. This is made with 100% Scottish barley (as you would expect, given the name), matured in the village of Port Charlotte, two miles south of the Bruichladdich distillery. It's peated to 40 ppm - roughly Ardbeg/Caol Ila/Laphroaig territory. Un-chill-filtered and uncolored and bottled at a delightful 50% ABV.
Batch 17/259. I cannot celebrate companies like Bruichladdich enough for making things like this available. Bravo! This batch is ex-bourbon, ex-French oak (Rhone red), ex-French oak (three varietals of Bordeaux red). Four vintages are present from 12 years to 7 years. Seven year old makes up about half of the total; the average is somewhere around 9.
Nose: Strong peat wafts in the air as soon as the bottle is uncorked. Peat galore, straw, honey, earth. Some apples? Some soft golden fruit in there; maybe poached pear? A nice hit of iodine that gets stronger the longer you let the glass sit. I get all peat on the nose and virtually no smoke at all.
Mouthfeel: Nicely full, viscous.
Palate: Interesting - it's very earthen, with a chalkiness that is almost like clay, arriving alongside the very prominent peat. Smoking straw. A certain meatiness, almost like jerky. Charred cereal. Burnt spun sugar or caramel. The same light, soft fruit in the nose makes a brief appearance here. Peat is by far the dominant element, but it's exceptionally rounded.
Finish: How interesting - coal! I get a strong charcoal taste as the flavors recede. It pairs with a smoked barley, a light grass, and an oak flavor, but the coal dominates - I like it. Rather hot - the 50% ABV really announces itself here.
Verdict: What a fresh, well-assembled Islay dram! This is exceptionally peaty - peat lurks in every corner of every sip - but has a number of other interesting flavors also. I was intrigued that so many French oak casks were used in this, because I detected none of their influence whatsoever - no red grapes, no wine, no spice, nothing. This was peat, barley, a soft fruit, and a charcoal/clay/earth element. This is very smooth, especially for 100 proof, and therefore dangerously drinkable. I'm curious how this is different from the Islay Barley Heavily Peated, which sells for about $10-20 more. I still prefer Kilchoman, but this is a class act.
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