Octomore Series 16: seeing through the smoke

You can buy Octomore Series 16 from Master of Malt here: 16.1, 16.2, 16.3. 

“Octomore can be more Bruichladdich than Bruichladdich is”, says brand ambassador Bill Shearer. 

Octomore is where the farm is, the field is, the natural spring water. It’s where contradictions begin and the extremes meet the elegant.

This is a brand born from a “why not?”. The whiskies are routinely peated over 100ppm, sometimes exceeding 300ppm, yet it’s never just peat for peat’s sake.

Bruichladdich: the bigger picture

The Harvey brothers founded Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay in 1881. Purpose-built, with a courtyard design and gravity-fed production hall, it was a Victorian vision of efficiency. They still use the mash tun originally meant for Bunnahabhain (which opened the same year and swapped tuns when its own arrived before the distillery was ready to use it), and the still base still bears coal marks from direct firing.

The distillery has survived wars, economic slumps, and closures, including a seven-year mothballing from 1994 to 2001. You all by now know the story of its revival at the hands of Mark Reynier, Simon Coughlin, and Jim McEwan, who put community and provenance back at its heart. 

Islay barley was first planted in 2004, now making up over half of annual production. An on-site bottling hall followed, and all whisky is now conceived, distilled, matured, and bottled on Islay, a claim only one other distillery on the island can make.

Today, Bruichladdich is home to four spirits: Bruichladdich, unpeated single malt. Port Charlotte, heavily peated at 40ppm. The Botanist, the first Islay dry gin. And Octomore, the world’s most heavily peated whisky series. 

McEwan wanted the opportunity to experiment. A conversation with Bairds Maltings up in Inverness revealed that, in the making of Port Charlotte, malt was peated to 80ppm. He asked for it, but was told it was not worth distilling. He wanted to see what Bruichladdich could do.

The Impossible Equation

“Octomore exists to provoke and challenge,” says head distiller Adam Hannett. Too young, too strong, too peaty, it shouldn’t work. 

Yet it does, precisely because it doesn’t behave like it should. Each expression reveals smoke not as a blunt weapon but as a lens through which barley, cask, and place can shine. 

Octomore has a chewiness and waxiness that you wouldn’t expect, given Bruichladdich has big stills with long lyne arms that refine its spirit. It’s all peat-driven texture. The distillery even cuts half an hour earlier than it usually does during its first distillation run to stop too much waxiness coming through and overwhelming the spirit character. 

Series 16 continues that tradition. Three (soon four) whiskies, all five years old, all bottled big, all evolving in the glass or with a drop of water. At a tasting at Dram Bar with Shearer last week, I got to see, once again, firm proof that peat isn’t one-dimensional.

The .1 is always the benchmark, the .2 plays with cask alchemy, the .3 showcases Islay barley, and later this year, there’s a .4: a finale in virgin French oak. We don’t have the latter, but the other three get the MoM treatment today. 

Let’s get to tasting.

Octomore 16.1 – the benchmark

Made from 100% Scottish mainland Concerto barley malted to 101.4ppm, 16.1 was matured entirely in first-fill bourbon casks and bottled at 59.3% ABV. It’s the launchpad of the series. Pure, elemental Octomore.

Tasting notes:

Nose: Thick peat smoke opens with rock pools, singed plasters, burnt bacon, sherbet lemons, and melon. Barley sweets, salted caramel, damp hay, apricot, and vanilla coconut.

Palate: Dense smoke balanced by waxy honey, Harvest Chewee Cereal Bar, stone fruit, toasted oak, and chocolate richness.

Finish: Lingering, smoky, and mineral, with cocoa and a touch of cockles and mussels.

Octomore 16.2 – the cask experiment

Here’s where things get interesting. 16.2 uses the exact same barley and peat level as 16.1, but it’s matured in a mix never before seen in an Octomore: oloroso and Bordeaux casks, then finished in Madeira and Portuguese Moscatel. Bottled at 58.1% ABV, it shows how radical cask selection can transform the spirit.

Tasting notes:

Nose: Such thick, sticky dried fruit, I thought somebody dropped a date in the glass. Smoky bacon jam. Roasted hazelnuts, incense, earthy red chilli, like a cigar put out in a plum.

Palate: We’re into peated Sloe Gin territory. Dense and smoky and sweet with plums, cherries, treacle, and nut brittle, with sweet spice and wine tannins wrapped in mellow peat.

Finish: Punchy and powerful, with a sweet smattering of spice and dark fruit and smoked nuts.

Octomore 16.3 – the Islay original

This is the archetypal Octomore. It’s distilled from Concerto barley grown on Octomore Farm itself, peated to a staggering 189.5ppm, then matured in bourbon, Sauternes, and Pedro Ximénez casks, before being bottled at 61.6% ABV. It’s all local grain, monstrous smoke, and a tapestry of coastal complexity. The very essence of Islay.

Tasting notes:

Nose: Vanilla ice cream, dried apricot, toasted oak, and beach bonfire. Honey in porridge (burnt), some PX dried fruit aromas, nutmeg, chilli-stuffed olives, and chocolate brownies. You’ll be amazed at how graceful the smoke is. 

Palate: Orchard fruit, stone fruit, peanut brittle, crawfish, and honeyed barley.

Finish: Monumental. It’s the word the brand uses, and it’s the right word. Waves of smoke and sea crash away in your mouth for an age with apricot and chocolate and pepper.