We Find The Four Best Whiskies From Bruichladdich

Bruichladdich has been around since 1881. With that much history behind them, they’ve had a bit of time to create quite a portfolio and storehouse of single malts. If you haven’t been alive for the last 140 years to keep up with them, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. We’ve found our selection of the four best whiskies from Bruichladdich.

Bruichladdich hasn’t let the intervening years just pass them by. To keep up with this new age of knowing exactly where all the ingredients of our food come from, they have done the whisky equivalent. A batch number on the back of every bottle leads back to their website which can tell you exactly which casks your glass of whisky spent time in. For example batch 19/999 of the Classic Laddie is made up of 76 different casks, comprising five vintages of spirit, three different barley types and eight different cask types.

Currently their selection available in New Zealand ranges everywhere from $99 to $1,399. Let’s take a look at what they have for us and which might be the best whiskies for you.

SCOTTICH BARLEY “CLASSIC LADDIE” | $99.99

The Classic Laddie is definitely the place to start on your Bruichladdich journey. Its flavour subtly shifts from year to year but it sets the bar for the classic, floral and elegant Bruichladdich house style. It’s a fresh and lively whisky with the oak and grain characters poised and balanced.

ISLAY BARLEY 2010 | $155

It sits at 50% ABV for maximum mouthfeel and is perfect for non-whisky drinkers who don’t enjoy anything too smoky or peaty.

The guys at Bruichladdich distilled the spirit early in 2010 and it ran clean, rich and malty, before being filled into ex-Bourbon and French wine casks and matured in their warehouses by Loch Indaal. The natural oils coaxed gently from the grain temper the spice to allow its young, clean, fresh charm to flourish.

BLACK ART 8.1 EDITION | $469

“Just before Master Distiller Jim McEwan retired in 2015, he took me to one side and handed me his recipe for the next iteration, Black Art 5. It was an emotional moment, the handing over of responsibility of one of the greatest drams we’ve ever created. I have to say I took the recipe from Jim’s hand and dutifully ignored it. This had to be my Black Art.” – Adam Hannett, Head Distiller

The 8.1 edition of Black Art was stilled in 1994 and has taken all the time it needs to become a mellow, less intense expression, breaking the mold in the process. The cask strength sits at 45.1% and only 12,000 bottles were produced. This is perfect for someone who wants to make an evening of trying something new.

RARE CASK 1985 | $1,399

The oldest bottle we’re bringing to you and only for the truly enthusiastic whisky fan. This dram comes from the final 22 casks of the legacy stock distilled back in 1985 and thus represents the end of an era. This one is getting hard to find already as it was such a limited run, although you can still find a bottle in New Zealand if you’re lucky. While I haven’t had the luxury of tasting it myself, it’s been described as a “tremendous presence on the palate, the texture is wondrously soft and syrupy. The short ACE in the wine casks has given a warm, nutmeg hint and a layer of fruity notes, raspberry, blackcurrant jam and ripe plum, all perfectly balanced by years in American oak – cinder toffee, lemon meringue and coconut – bounty bar sweet”.

Now we can get caught up in the prices if we wanted, but the main thing to remember, cost and rarity don’t make a good whisky. Fine company does.