I guess you all know Big Peat whisky, a rather excellent blended malt which has been around for a couple of years, and the brainchild of Douglas Laing. Initially they release a standard edition that includes a bit Ardbeg,Caol Ila, Bowmore and some Port Ellen, and later that year released a Xmas edition of the same blend at cask strength, which is even more brilliant. I’ve gone through a bottle of each, and quite like this blending (vatting), as it’s Islay enough, but is rather “wide” in its flavour profiles, and offers a really good BFYB factor. They have recently got into social media, and mostly twitter and FB, and show quite a nice presence on twitter, where they have announced a limited edition bottled at 50% “small batch” in wee bottles of 50cl available only on their online shop to be delivered in the UK. Gladly they have been generous enough to send over a wee sample for review, with an addition this very cool big peat pen which projects the big peat logo my kids really liked. let’s see how this limited edition is, shall we?
Big peat , Small batch , 50% abv, 50cl, £29.99
Nose : Starting with lots of lemon zest, lemongrass quite fresh with soot and coal in the back giving way to peat smoke, sweet peat , leather, rubber(wellingtons), some pears and medicinal notes too. Very ‘wide’ as to speak, and very Islay.
Palate: A mixture of sweet pear and apple with dry peat smoke , soot, leather and ash. Vanilla too with bits of lemon zest.
Finish: Very long. Dry bitter smoke and ash with a touch of vanilla.
Cracking stuff really. Very nice, even at 50% it’s very drinkable, and is essentially the best of Islay in one wee bottle. Cool bottle too, and although it’s small, it’s not very expensive, and should look great on your shelves (but for drinking, eh? no collecting).
Score: 88/100
Official sample provided by D.Laing.