Ledaig 1996 MBl (Meadowside Blending)

Meadowside Blending selected this Ledaig, a 27 year old release from 1996, drawn from cask 7709 and bottled at 47.7%. 250 bottles in all. Ledaig is the heavily peated single malt of Tobermory distillery, the only distillery on the Isle of Mull, founded in 1798. The distillery makes two malts: the unpeated Tobermory and the peated Ledaig.

It was run through the distillery's boil ball stills from peated barley, to build the medicinal, briny Ledaig character. A wine cask laid red fruit over the peat smoke. At this age it is mellow and oily, the smoke folded into a rich body. Peat smoke and active oak settle together over the years, the smoke softening as the fruit deepens. The distillery's history is broken by long silences; its buildings once stored a local cheddar. Burn Stewart revived production in 1993, and Distell bought the distillery in 2013. The stills carry boil bulbs and a kink in the lyne arms, which lifts the reflux.

At a full 47.7% it is intense and layered. Soot, sea salt and a sweet fruit, and the wine cask lends red berry and a dry spice. Beneath the smoke run brine, tar and a sweet fruit. It closes long, smoky and briny. This is the peated island malt of Mull.