Ledaig 1972 (Connoisseurs Choice) (40%)

From Gordon & MacPhail comes this Ledaig, a 14 year old from 1972 and bottled at 40%. Ledaig is the peated malt made at Tobermory on Mull, a distillery founded as Ledaig in 1798. Ledaig, the old name kept for the peated malt, means safe haven in Gaelic.

It was run through the distillery's boil ball stills from peated barley, to build the medicinal, briny Ledaig character. It rested in ex-Bourbon oak, a light sweetness under the peat. Around the mid teens the smoke knits with dried fruit and a sea salt. The phenols soften with age into a gentle, sweet wood smoke. The stills carry boil bulbs and a kink in the lyne arms, which lifts the reflux. Water is drawn from a private hill loch, the Gearr Abhainn, above the town. Its painted home town gives the unpeated malt its name. A rare, more heavily peated make has appeared under the name Iona, after a neighbouring isle. In dry summers the distillery has paused when its hill loch ran low.

At 40% it is smooth and full. Soot, sea salt and a sweet fruit, and vanilla and a soft oak come from the bourbon wood. Beneath the smoke run brine, tar and a sweet fruit. It finishes smoky, salty and warming. This is the peated island malt of Mull.