Isle of Harris Distillers Ltd. The Hearach 2018 Cask #1932

This 2018 single cask of The Hearach comes from the Isle of Harris Distillery, the first legal distillery on the island and the first to make a single malt there in modern times. A single ex-Bourbon cask gave 248 bottles for Germany at six years old.

The Tarbert distillery, opened in 2015 to anchor the local economy, lightly peats its malt to evoke island hearth fires and draws water over ancient Lewisian gneiss. Matured in a single ex-Bourbon cask, the oak lets the young spirit's smoke and minerality show.

Bottled at its natural cask strength of 58.9%. The ex-Bourbon wood gives vanillin for vanilla and oak lactones for coconut, while guaiacol and phenols carry the gentle peat. The recorded notes run to cocoa, malt sweetness, a mossy earthiness, fresh oak, a coal-gas mineral edge and smoke. Characterful and young.