Ballechin 2013 (LMDW) (57.7%)

A 10 year old Ballechin from the Paris house La Maison du Whisky, distilled in 2013, from cask 20, bottled at 57.7%, one of 223 bottles. Ballechin is Edradour's smoky single malt, peated to around fifty parts per million. It was bought in 2002 by Andrew Symington of the independent bottler Signatory Vintage.

It was made from malt peated to around fifty parts per million in the tiny stills, building the rich, peated Ballechin style. It rested in ex-Bourbon oak, oak lactones lending vanilla and a little coconut. Integration folds eugenol (clove) and vanillin (vanilla) into the smoky malt, the body fuller and oilier. The worm tubs leave an oily weight that carries through the years in cask. Its peated make, Ballechin, is named after a long extinct peated farm distillery a few miles away. Its water comes from the Ben Vrackie springs in the hills above the distillery.

At a natural 57.7% it is full and oily. Soft ash, dried fruit and a creamy malt, with a soft vanilla from the oak. It is rich and smoky, the oily spirit shining through. The close is oily and smoky, fruit over a tarry oak. This is Ballechin's heavily peated, oily style.