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Bruichladdich Laddie Classic

Average score from 4 reviews and 7 ratings 82

Bruichladdich Laddie Classic

Product details

  • Brand: Bruichladdich
  • Bottler: Distillery Bottling
  • ABV: 46.0%
  • Bottled: 2009

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@talexander
Bruichladdich Laddie Classic

This whisky was launched in 2009, with no age statement, as an entry point to the distillery character. Which I think was necessary, as their 200+ expressions can be daunting for the novice. And so, unlike most Bruichladdich expressions, there is no fussing with peat, oak, types of barley, wacky names, etc etc. Just unpeated malt matured in ex-bourbon casks.

Slightly dark gold colour. On the nose, sweet honey mingles with the malt. Slightly briny, like salt spray in the air. Herbal, heathery, with some caramel. Quite light on the nose. Water ups the fresh sea air. I could swear there is a hint of peat there, but they say this is not peated…

On the palate, brinier still, with some tingling on the lips. Very light caramel, creamy mouthfeel and silky smooth. Very gentle vanilla. A few drops of water add quite a bit of spice - going from salt to salt-and-pepper.

The finish is salted caramel, though a wee bit rough. This is a very interesting dram, I quite like it, though it is a bit young and fuzzy. If you like briny whiskies (as I do), I think you will enjoy this. It nicely demonstrates the distillery profile, plain and simple. I'm always hit-and-miss on Bruichladdichs, and this one works because, as I mentioned, Jim McEwan isn't fussing with it.

@rigmarole - no, I haven't tried that Aberlour ncf. 12 - I'd be very interested to do a side-by-side with that and the standard 12 and get a sense of the effects of ncf.

@Onibubba - I must admit, I do prefer the Laddie 10, which is probably my favourite Bruichladdich!

I am nursing a bottle of this at home. I wish I had picked up a spare but I don't think the LCBO carries it any more. But I just don't have room for a spare of everything

n

from a purchased sample

Nose: Smoky, and there's a peat influence without really bringing the bog. Very playful with rich vanilla cake frosting. Maybe just a trace amount of lemon and malt. Cake batter, This isn't the most complex dram, but it's easy and smells delicious and substantial. Crystallized barley with a punch of salt, and some apple juice.

Palate: The alcohol and wood are a bit out of synch. Ashy, honey, vanilla, and more frosting, but the wood is dull, wet, and bitter-sour. Some sweet malt and salt.

Finish: Ok. Fairly rich. A nice assortment of flavors in an easy pleasing profile. The initial go of the palate docks this and keeps it from being a very good whisky. The finish is more on sweet malt, lemon, and whiffs of oil and ash.

@SquidgyAsh

As many of you my fine friends know, I work at a beer importers. We bring the good stuff into Australia. If you've ever seen some of my beers, Weihenstephan, Sierra Nevada, Green Flash, Theakston's, etc anywhere in Australia, that store bought it from me.

Now while the vast majority of our business's income comes from bottle shops that all Australians know and love, we had a small room in the front of our building that was sitting there and doing nothing.

We figured "Why don't we open this small room, fill it up with beer and let the public come in and see/sample the wares?"

Hence my showroom was borne. In this showroom I've got something along the lines of 200 different beers, and every Friday and Saturday I host a free tasting, for the public to come in and try the good stuff.

Now you're probably wondering why I figure this is relevant for a whisky site.

Simple.

I find that most guys who like beer, ALSO like whisky.

And as time has gone along, more and more of my customers know me for the whisky man that I am. And more and more often I'm getting customers asking me about whisky.

What ones are the good ones?

What ones are worth the money?

Is ANY whisky worth more then $200 honestly?!

As one of my regulars put it "with whisky prices what they are, each and every bottle is an investment"

Very true.

So I decided to create a little impromptu whisky club. Just a few members getting together every few weeks as we try different regions and styles of whisky.

The customers love the idea! Sounds like a plan.

So I'd intended the first night to actually be tonight.

I call up my favorite whisky bar to confirm that they were indeed open tonight, I email them and after almost a week I hear a response.

Sadly they're not open.

Amusingly enough I'd decided not to wait on a confirmation before looking for another possible venue to do our first tasting.

Someone had suggested the Mechanic's Institute.

I give them a call, asking about tasting glasses, whisky selection, etc.

They inform me they have one of the biggest selections of rye whiskies, and a decent selection of single malts. They have tasting glasses, but they can't tell me what kind.

I need to investigate.

So yesterday my sister in law, my wife and I all decide to head down there for lunch.

Nice little bar on the second floor of a building, tucked away from the main road. I order food for my wife and myself and then start perusing the whisky selection.

Definitely a nice rye selection, might be fun to do a rye tasting there, but just about every other whisky in the bar, I've had.

Now that's not a bad thing, I find that at just about any bar around I've had all/almost all of the whiskies available. I've just hit over 200 different whiskies sampled this year alone, so that's not a bad thing like I said.

But the selection is not enough for a whisky tasting for a club for the first time.

I need a large variety of regions and styles, which sadly this bar doesn't have.

So I decide to grab a dram of one of the whiskies that I've yet to try and see first hand what type of whisky tasting glasses they have.

I've been an Islay mood so I decide to grab a Bruichladdich Laddie Classic Edition #1.

It's got a pretty blue bottle, what can I say?

So I grab a dram and it comes in a tulip style tasting glass, not bad. I set it down at our table when I go to get our food.

I come back to my sister in law and wife having tried it ahead of me.

Hahaha cheeky!

I decide to give it a nose.

Interesting, very interesting.

It's like a sexy little Christmas pudding almost.

Lots of salt, lots of nuts, barley, fruit, the slightest hint of peat, hints of cocoa as the whisky breathes.

My sister in law and wife ask what region it's from and when I inform them that it's Islay they blink.

My sister in law then informs me that she'd have never guessed that.

Fair enough, neither would I if I didn't know the distillery's background.

Let's see what it tastes like!

Time for a taste!

Salty and sweet is a very good way to describe it with a nice dose of bitterness thrown in. You get more of the ripe fruits along with some sexy caramel bitterness along with sweet barley and then lots of salt.

Yum!

There is just a wee bit of peat, but again nothing that would make you jump up and down and yell Islay. You'd honestly be thinking more Islands or a Highlands whisky.

A nice long bitter finish with hints of fruit at the very end of the caramel.

Quite enjoyable!

But once more you wouldn't say Islay when you tried this.

And it's available at Dan Murphy's for roughly $90 AUS. Not bad!

I think this would be a really nice whisky to pull out for say an Islay tasting. You know? An Ardbeg, a Laphroaig, a Caol Ila and a Bruichladdich would be a very nice tasting!

I've generally found your points to be quite generous, Ash, but in this case 84 is fairly low. You are one of the reviewers that I trust on Connosr. I have the youngest "Laddie" waiting in my safe. Perhaps I'll try it before considering a purchase of the Classic. It's $75 in Oregon. Not too bad.

I must say that I'm intrigued by the mixing of older 20+ whisky and younger whisky in the Classic. Would you say this dram tastes more like the young or more like the old, or is it its own animal?

I see your review is not all that old. Say, three months or so. Maybe it's been too long to recall. At any rate, thank you for the review, Ash. I like the attention that you put into "framing a narrative," so to speak, in many of your reviews.

@Rigmorole Third time trying to reply to your comments haha. Connosr seems to being cranky with me lately.

First let me say thank you for the kind words. It humbles me that you value my opinion so much. So thank you very much. I'm glad that you enjoy the reviews and I personally feel that what's going on around you and what you're doing while you're tasting a whisky will definitely influence how the whisky is perceived.

Second, sadly this is the first Bruichladdich that I've tasted so my experience with the distillery is minimal. However I do hope to correct this situation with an upcoming whisky tasting featuring Bruichladdich. That being said this expression didn't taste young, however I wouldn't say that it felt like a very old whisky so until I can try some more of these guys and develop a feel for them I'm going to say that this one is it's very own beast!

@SquidgyAsh

As many of you my fine friends know, I work at a beer importers. We bring the good stuff into Australia. If you've ever seen some of my beers, Weihenstephan, Sierra Nevada, Green Flash, Theakston's, etc anywhere in Australia, that store bought it from me.

Now while the vast majority of our business's income comes from bottle shops that all Australians know and love, we had a small room in the front of our building that was sitting there and doing nothing.

We figured "Why don't we open this small room, fill it up with beer and let the public come in and see/sample the wares?"

Hence my showroom was borne. In this showroom I've got something along the lines of 200 different beers, and every Friday and Saturday I host a free tasting, for the public to come in and try the good stuff.

Now you're probably wondering why I figure this is relevant for a whisky site.

Simple.

I find that most guys who like beer, ALSO like whisky.

And as time has gone along, more and more of my customers know me for the whisky man that I am. And more and more often I'm getting customers asking me about whisky.

What ones are the good ones?

What ones are worth the money?

Is ANY whisky worth more then $200 honestly?!

As one of my regulars put it "with whisky prices what they are, each and every bottle is an investment"

Very true.

So I decided to create a little impromptu whisky club. Just a few members getting together every few weeks as we try different regions and styles of whisky.

The customers love the idea! Sounds like a plan.

So I'd intended the first night to actually be tonight.

I call up my favorite whisky bar to confirm that they were indeed open tonight, I email them and after almost a week I hear a response.

Sadly they're not open.

Amusingly enough I'd decided not to wait on a confirmation before looking for another possible venue to do our first tasting.

Someone had suggested the Mechanic's Institute.

I give them a call, asking about tasting glasses, whisky selection, etc.

They inform me they have one of the biggest selections of rye whiskies, and a decent selection of single malts. They have tasting glasses, but they can't tell me what kind.

I need to investigate.

So yesterday my sister in law, my wife and I all decide to head down there for lunch.

Nice little bar on the second floor of a building, tucked away from the main road. I order food for my wife and myself and then start perusing the whisky selection.

Definitely a nice rye selection, might be fun to do a rye tasting there, but just about every other whisky in the bar, I've had.

Now that's not a bad thing, I find that at just about any bar around I've had all/almost all of the whiskies available. I've just hit over 200 different whiskies sampled this year alone, so that's not a bad thing like I said.

But the selection is not enough for a whisky tasting for a club for the first time.

I need a large variety of regions and styles, which sadly this bar doesn't have.

So I decide to grab a dram of one of the whiskies that I've yet to try and see first hand what type of whisky tasting glasses they have.

I've been an Islay mood so I decide to grab a Bruichladdich Laddie Classic Edition #1.

It's got a pretty blue bottle, what can I say?

So I grab a dram and it comes in a tulip style tasting glass, not bad. I set it down at our table when I go to get our food.

I come back to my sister in law and wife having tried it ahead of me.

Hahaha cheeky!

I decide to give it a nose.

Interesting, very interesting.

It's like a sexy little Christmas pudding almost.

Lots of salt, lots of nuts, barley, fruit, the slightest hint of peat, hints of cocoa as the whisky breathes.

My sister in law and wife ask what region it's from and when I inform them that it's Islay they blink.

My sister in law then informs me that she'd have never guessed that.

Time for a taste!

Salty and sweet is a very good way to describe it with a nice dose of bitterness thrown in. You get more of the ripe fruits along with some sexy caramel bitterness along with sweet barley and then lots of salt.

Yum!

There is just a wee bit of peat, but again nothing that would make you jump up and down and yell Islay. You'd honestly be thinking more Islands or a Highlands whisky.

A nice long bitter finish with hints of fruit at the very end of the caramel.

Quite enjoyable!

But once more you wouldn't say Islay when you tried this.

And it's available at Dan Murphy's for roughly $90 AUS. Not bad!

I think this would be a really nice whisky to pull out for say an Islay tasting. You know? An Ardbeg, a Laphroaig, a Caol Ila and a Bruichladdich would be a very nice tasting!

Fair enough, neither would I if I didn't know the distillery's background.

Let's see what it tastes like!

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