Ledaig 2011 (Old Particular)

Douglas Laing selected this Ledaig, a 12 year old island malt from 2011, drawn from cask DL 18536 and bottled at 48.4%. The outturn was 835 bottles. Ledaig, the peated malt of Mull's only distillery, keeps the old name the distillery bore when John Sinclair founded it in 1798. The stills carry boil bulbs and an S shaped kink in the lyne arms, which raises reflux.

Distilled from malt peated to around thirty seven parts per million, building the bold, smoky Ledaig style. An ex-Bourbon barrel shaped it, vanilla under the maritime smoke. Around the mid teens the smoke knits with dried fruit and a sea salt. The cool, damp island air gives a slow, even maturation. The town of Tobermory was laid out by the British Fisheries Society a decade before the distillery came. The distillery's history is broken by long silences; its buildings once stored a local cheddar.

Bottled at a cask strength 48.4%, it is intense. Wood smoke, BBQ char and a coastal salt, and the bourbon cask adds vanilla and a gentle honey. 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.