Ledaig 2009 (Old Particular)

This Ledaig was released by Douglas Laing, a 15 year old release from 2009, drawn from cask DL 18506 and bottled at 56.4%. A release of 352 bottles. Ledaig is the peated malt made at Tobermory on Mull, a distillery founded as Ledaig in 1798. Its history is famously broken, with long silences; the buildings once held holiday lets and stored cheese.

Distilled from peated malt in kinked copper stills on soft Mull water, giving a sooty, coastal peat smoke over a fruity sweetness. Ex-Sherry wood added dried fruit to the smoky spirit. Past a decade the smoke softens, the soot and brine settling over ripe fruit. Refill oak lets the peat and brine of Ledaig lead. 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.

At a full 56.4% it is intense and layered. Peat smoke, brine and a medicinal note, and raisin and a nutty sherry depth build. A BBQ char and a sea salt lift it. A long, peaty finish smoulders to the end. This is Ledaig, the peated malt of the Isle of Mull.