Ledaig 2020 100 Proof Edition #76 (Signatory)

A Ledaig single malt, an independent Signatory Vintage bottling, a 6 year old release from 2020 and bottled at 57.1%. Ledaig is the heavily peated single malt of Tobermory distillery, the only distillery on the Isle of Mull, founded in 1798. Burn Stewart revived the distillery in 1993, and Distell of South Africa bought it in 2013.

The spirit was run through the distillery's boil ball stills from peated barley, to build the medicinal, briny Ledaig character. Maturation came in ex-Bourbon wood, vanilla beneath the soot. Younger here, the peat runs bold over a sweet, fruity core. Peat smoke and active oak settle together over the years, the smoke softening as the fruit deepens. 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 cask strength 57.1% it is muscular. Soot, sea salt and a sweet fruit, and the bourbon cask adds vanilla and a gentle honey. Beneath the smoke run brine, tar and a sweet fruit. The close is long, smoke over a sweet fruit. This is the peated island malt of Mull.