Review: Port Charlotte 10 (2020)

Bruichladdich Port Charlotte 10

50% ABV

Purchased: 2020

Price: $60 + tax

Aged: Oak casks

Score: 5. Average. Skip to the Review

A Whisky Heist

Bruichladdich has played an interesting part in my relatively short, but adventurous, whisky journey. Back in 2019 I had jumped into the bourbon and Scotch train full force in the autumn and began voraciously consuming whisky content on YouTube. My primary go to, like many beginners, was the Whiskey Vault/Tribe. Frankly, I couldn’t get enough and through them I had learned about a couple mythical bottles of Scotch from a distillery called Bruichladdich. One was described as the peatiest whisky in the world, and it was called Octomore. The other was a very mysterious and very expensive bottle known as Black Art, of which the 4.1 version (whatever that meant) was the most holiest of grails. 

Fast forward a couple months to December when I traveled back home to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas with my family. My girlfriend was coming with me, a Bay Area native, to experience her first Wisconsin winter. The state obliged, and snowed a bit and the coldest days of the year occurred during our visit. I was humored by the number of layers she put on just to go to the car and images from A Christmas Story popped into my head. You know the one, where Ralpy’s brother Randy tried walking to school without being able to put his arms down. On one of these trips, we headed to a large grocery store in town that had a substantial liquor store inside of it. I needed to get some beer and of course check out the whisky shelves to see if I could add to my fledgling collection. Lo and behold, in one of the small cases by the registers was not just a bottle of Octomore 10.1, but that holy grail, Black Art 4.1. 

I gasped with dramatic flair. I don’t believe I had paid more than $100 for a bottle of booze yet, and frankly the idea of doing that still seemed absurd (Oh, how young we once were…). The Octomore was priced at $180 + tax and the Black Art was $380. I knew I wasn’t going to leave without the Octomore as it was described as being so very rare and so very PEATY. The Black Art however, was just not in the cards. I couldn’t do it as it just seemed like an insane amount of money. I can’t remember if I had watched Scotch: A Golden Dream yet where this bottle is featured alongside Jim McEwan and his journey with Bruickladdich. I believe I had, but regardless I told my girlfriend what I knew about the bottle and she must have seen the excitement in my eyes because she offered to buy it for my upcoming January birthday. Nope. Couldn’t let her do that. I mean, I could have bought it but I couldn’t justify it and it seemed equally absurd for her to do so. We left with my prize of Octomore in tow, still wondering how I got to the point of spending almost $200 on a single bottle of whisky.

I expected a big dose of buyer’s remorse to be honest. But it never came. We had flown from California so I wasn’t going to open the bottle until I got home, to my brother’s dismay. So it sat there in my old teenage bedroom in my parent’s house staring at me, and I stared back. I liked opening the tin and removing the bottle. It was like opening a secret compartment and seeing a pile of ill gotten gold and jewels.  It just felt good. The jet black bottle was so smooth in my hands and it felt so weighty. I decidedly did not regret my purchase. I did, however, have regrets about not getting the bottle of Black Art. It haunted me as I knew it was sitting there just waiting for me, and only me, to come get it. My Precious. I started to scheme. To try and think of some way I could justify spending that much money AFTER I had already spent $200 on the Octomore. Finally, I found something of a workaround. I knew it was stupid because I hadn’t actually solved the original problem of ~$400 for a bottle of alcohol being ridiculous, but it seemed to calm my mind. 

My girlfriend and I would split it. 

She would pay for half as my birthday present, and I would pay the other half. I knew my brain better than anyone else and this was the perfect plan to trick it into doing what I wanted. Eventually we went back to the store for some more beer or food and I proposed my plan, and she rightfully seemed to have a look of “What’s wrong with you, just let me buy it…” painted across her face. But she thankfully acquiesced and we got the bottle out of the case and took it to the register, where……

It rang up for $300 instead of the $380 on display in the case! My plan had worked even better than expected and my brain could not argue any longer. There was no chance of regrets, as we had gotten a deal. “We practically stole it from them” I slyly told myself. So began a love affair with Bruichladdich. I still love it, although the lack of official bottlings with age statements over 10 years old is frustrating and suspicious. I finished that bottle of Octomore not that long ago, and replaced it with the 12.3 version and my bottle of Black Art is getting low. I’ll take this brief moment to send some praise to my girlfriend. She continues to support my hobby and passion and has carried on the tradition of buying me some rather nice bottles around Christmas/Birthday time. I no longer offer to pay for half though. Sometimes you just need to let folks be generous. 🙂 

The Review

Nose: Smoke is present and generally ashy, but well integrated. Dominant note is coastal with a toasty edge around it. Digging deeper reveals some faint burnt popcorn and still-in-the-oven puff pastry. Sweetness is a bit lemon and malty which lifts up the coastal elements nicely. At one point, I picked out an almond biscotti with a lemon glaze. Water brings out the ashiness and pushes some of the sweeter and coastal notes more into the background. The citrus notes seem to turn more towards honey. Overall, it’s a full and well balanced nose. Very nice.

Palate: Oily. Arrival is fresh and briny with a lemon candy twist. This develops into a chardonnay like oakiness with a good dose of salty toffee and graham cracker. A gentle maltiness ties things together. It is coating and almost sticky in a pleasant, non-cloying way. Water brings out a thick dose of honey that is a nice contrast to the saltiness of the neat pour. It is, however, a bit more simple but not necessarily less enjoyable.

Finish: More salt and lightly oaky with a nice vanilla nougat and faint cocoa powder. There is a touch of minerality as well.  Medium to long in length. Again, water accentuates a honey sweetness that does not overpower. There is an extra helping of cocoa powder as well.

Overall: This was a tough review to choose for my first public attempt. Not because PC10 is overly complex or difficult to interpret, but because this is a style that I have not been overly enthusiastic about for a while now. I enjoyed Port Charlotte 10 and can easily recommend it to any peat fans out there, but I personally don’t love it. It’s a solid bottle to be sure and at the end of the day I won’t complain about sipping on a glass of it. I don’t feel there are any natural flaws with it, I just feel it doesn’t commit to anything. It’s not a peat monster, it drinks a bit young and it’s also a bit one note with a salty citrus being the headliner and the other notes are mostly there to tie things together and round out the edges a bit. I also feel like my current palate isn’t totally digging the 10 year and under heavily peated Islay category right now, at least not without some wine influence. 5/10. Average.

Whisky Scoring Guide