When you think Lowlands you don’t generally think peat and smoke do you? Its a delicate and floral sector of the whisky market traditionally. Though actually, if you think about the agricultural makeup of the economic trade in the lowland are in the 19th century smoke and the burning of wood would be all around. The team at Bladnoch and master distiller Dr Savage had similar thoughts when they realised the Lowlands sector is an untapped area of the Scotch landscape with a lot of scope for creativity and innovation. Alinta is one of those innovations to the sector.

The Alinta is part of the Peat collection of single malts from the distillery which was launched in 2022. It turns out the distillery does a month of peated spirit and has done for some time. There has been a few distilleries, mostly in the Highlands region, who do a single run of peated once a month. The reason for that I am not sure about. It’s either to enhance their range or its to sell to blenders or bottlers as a peated component because they have found a market need for more peated stock now so much of Islay gets bottled as single malt now. Not sure really.

The Distillery

If there is one thing the Bladnoch distillery does well it’s their website. The “Our Story” page is very well laid out with a lot of interesting information and media.

From there you can learn the timeline of the distillery, the volume of alcohol produced (1.5M litres annually), number of washbacks (6), hours of fermentation (80hrs) and the strength they fill casks at (69% ABV).

Bladnoch is a picturesque Victorian distillery in a beautiful part of Scotland with wonderful views, a fairy tale river running through it and a village nearby with one of the best selection of bookshops you could hope to find. If I was a successful businessman with a desire to buy a distillery I would have bought Bladnoch as well.

The distillery is owned by an Australian entrepreneur David Prior who bought the distillery in 2015 and embarked on an investment plan to increase production, warehousing and generally bring jobs and investment back to an area which has little of it.

David is a lifelong whisky enthusiast with previous businesses in packaging, health foods (yoghurt) and now has two charities he runs based on challenges with Australia’s indigenous population and the Prior Family Foundation which focuses on wider environmental and cultural issues in Australia. He does genuinely seem a good guy doing the right things after owning a distillery for a decade and fair play to him.

Tasting Notes

Colour – Pale yellow

Nose – With PX sherry casks you go in thinking certain notes but not here this is peated lowland mall. Its slightly wood fired smokey with vanilla and yeh some peatiness but its not overpowering its pretty good actually

Palate – Cask influence is restrained and minimal with only a hint of some stewed fruits. This is predominately peated spirit forward where the peat smoke is woody in nature and wrapped in caramel and vanilla sweet notes.

Finish – Charred oak sap sweet

Final Thoughts

See this is what happens when you are a prick in the last review. I actually really liked this. It is true that young peated whisky is better and more engaging than older peated so this Alinta bottle had a headstart to begin with over the Samsara. It does have nice balance and rounded edges though so there might well be some slightly older stock in here to complete the recipe.