Ledaig 2007 Cuvée No. 4 (Signatory)

Signatory Vintage selected this Ledaig, a 13 year old island malt from 2007 and bottled at 60.4%. A release of 572 bottles. Ledaig is the peated malt made at Tobermory on Mull, a distillery founded as Ledaig in 1798. The distillery was founded in 1798 by John Sinclair, a local kelp merchant, as the Ledaig distillery.

The spirit was run through the distillery's boil ball stills from peated barley, to build the medicinal, briny Ledaig character. A fortified cask shaped it, the fruit meeting the smoke. Past a decade the smoke softens, the soot and brine settling over ripe fruit. 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.

Undiluted at 60.4%, it is powerful. 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.