Ledaig 2011 Cuvée No. 3 (Signatory)

Signatory Vintage selected this Ledaig, a 9 year old from 2011 and bottled at 60.8%. 674 bottles in all. Ledaig, the peated malt of Mull's only distillery, keeps the old name the distillery bore when John Sinclair founded it in 1798. The single malts are bottled without chill filtration at 46.3 percent or higher.

Distilled from malt peated to around thirty seven parts per million, building the bold, smoky Ledaig style. A wine cask laid red fruit over the peat smoke. Younger here, the peat runs bold over a sweet, fruity core. The cool, damp island air gives a slow, even maturation. 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. Water is drawn from a private hill loch, the Gearr Abhainn, above the town. Its painted home town gives the unpeated malt its name.

At 60.8%, undiluted, it is rich and deep. Wood smoke, BBQ char and a coastal salt, and the wine cask lends red berry and a dry spice. It is bold and coastal, the peat and soot to the fore. It closes long, smoky and briny. This is a heavily peated malt from Mull's only distillery.