Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie (2019)
Strength: 50% ABV
Purchased: 2020 – ~$60 + tax
Bottled: 6/6/2019 (Bottle Code: 19/124)
Aged: 7 to 8 years (per Buichladdich’s website)
Casks: Ex-Bourbon, French Red Wine Barrels, Spanish Ribeira barrels.
Presentation: Non-chill filtered, Natural Color
Original Review: November 15, 2020
Score: 6. Above Average.
From the Archives: FTA is a series of tasting notes and reviews that I had hand written earlier on in my whisky journey. These notes may not reflect how I would feel today, but represent my attempts to begin verbalizing what I was experiencing. I chose to hand write these because that seemed like a more intimate and focused effort. It also made me slow down a bit to think, write, and shake off any writing cramps between sips. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did add some text to make the reading experience a bit easier. I hope these ‘reviews’ will provide some context in my journey and will provide some reference points for my evolving palate over time.
The Review
Details: Bottle was ⅕ full at time of review. Bottle code for reference on www.bruichladdich.com was 19/124.
Nose: Vanilla, Lemon, Pie crust. Fresh and Floral.
Palate: Salty, tart, and peppery in that order of magnitude. A malty sweetness was present throughout.
Finish: Long finish, warming, with lingering pepper and barley sugar.
With Water: More fruitiness comes forward on the nose. The salinity dies down quite a bit on the palate and finish.
In Retrospect: Looking back on these notes I can tell that I was struggling to identify individual flavors here. It looks like I was more focused on the sensation range than actual flavor notes and that makes sense as I feel that the sensations are significantly easier to identify than putting names to flavors. Generally speaking, I have been a big fan of Bruichladdich and their various offerings over the years and I definitely feel like this bottle got the short end of the stick when it comes to my newbie attempts at analytics. I rated this one in my notes an 8.0 out of 10 which was a decent score compared to other ratings I gave at the time, a score which belies the sparse and somewhat bland notes I gave. I did have another bottle of this waiting to be opened, but it mysteriously disappeared in a cross country move. It remains a mystery that I have yet to let go of and will randomly dig through boxes and closets to see if it somehow made its way into a forgotten corner somewhere. Knowing that “I have a bottle here somewhere” has stopped me from buying another, but it may be time to give in.
Of course, the missing bottle will reappear as soon as I walk in the door with a new one…
I am going to give this one a 6/10 as I do know that I appreciated the extra points of ABV and overall presentation, and I have to respect the 8/10 score I gave it on my old system. Score: 6/10. Above Average.
Whisky Against Humanity 
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