Third day running we have a website’s own brand whisky and for the second day it comes from the Whisky Exchange.
The Brand
The Elements of Islay series is a really interesting themed bottling. Each bottle comes in a bottle which reminds me a Victorian chemists bottle. Each bottle is labelled with a fake Element symbol rather than the name of the distillery although it is always pretty obvious what the symbol represents.
This theme makes for a collectable series and these bottles tend to sell out fast and make good money for people at auction. The quality of the liquid though is always well received so this is more than just a gimmick in my opinion.
Below is an image shamelessly stolen from the Whisky Exchange blog to give you a flavour of what the bottles look like. The t-shirt design is a bottle label.
The Dram
The full strength peat expression is the first expression which will be an ongoing release. All the previous releases to this have been completely different, interesting batches. Once the batch was sold it could never be repeated.
This one is also a blended malt so a number of different Islay distilleries have been used in making this expression. Recently, a lower strength peat has been released which is also a blended malt but I do not know if the blend is a completely different composition or not.
As the name full strength would suggest it has been bottled at a weighty 59.3% and like all the bottles in the series is unchill-filtered and contains no colouring. The price for this is £35.95 here.
Tasting Notes
Colour- natural lemon juice
Nose – briny coastal sea air, sweet vanilla and bitter lemons
Palate (no water) – more of the sweet vanilla and subtle smoke
Palate (water) – apples and pears wrapped around a deeper peat
Finish (no water) – sweet briny peat that lingers with honey sweetness
Finish (water) – bitter sweet finish now that I always enjoy
Final Thoughts
This is a simple well constructed whisky. It is a great price and a lot of fun to sit and enjoy. This is no peat monster but it has a lot of smokiness and depth of flavour. The peat finish survives for a long long old time. A real sign of quality for me and evidence if ever needed that not chill filtering your whisky is the way forward.
If I was asked to bet I would say Caol Ila and Bowmore are involved in this mix but maybe I am wrong?
Malted 