{"id":60030,"date":"2025-09-08T10:01:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/post\/octomore-series-16-seeing-through-the-smoke\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T10:17:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:17:02","slug":"octomore-series-16-seeing-through-the-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/octomore-series-16-seeing-through-the-smoke\/","title":{"rendered":"Octomore Series 16: Seeing Through the Smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>You can buy Octomore Series 16 from Master of Malt here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/octomore-16-1-whisky\/\">16.1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/octomore-16-2-whisky\/\">16.2<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/octomore-16-3-whisky\/\">16.3<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<strong>Octomore<\/strong> can be more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/distilleries\/bruichladdich-whisky-distillery\/\">Bruichladdich<\/a> than Bruichladdich is\u201d, says brand ambassador Bill Shearer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Octomore is where the farm is, the field is, the natural spring water. It&#8217;s where contradictions begin and the extremes meet the elegant.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a brand born from a \u201cwhy not?\u201d. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whisky\/\">whiskies<\/a> are routinely peated over 100ppm, sometimes exceeding 300ppm, yet it\u2019s never just peat for peat\u2019s sake.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_59563\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59563\" class=\"size-large wp-image-59563\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-1024x627.jpg\" alt=\"Whisky is agriculture\" width=\"770\" height=\"471\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-1024x627.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-300x184.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-768x471.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-1536x941.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-380x233.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-1100x674.jpg 1100w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay-1200x735.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Octomore-Farm-Islay.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-59563\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Octomore farm on Islay<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><b>Bruichladdich: the bigger picture<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The Harvey brothers founded Bruichladdich Distillery on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/region-style\/islay\/single-malt-whisky\/\">Islay<\/a> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, Bruichladdich is home to four spirits: Bruichladdich, unpeated single malt. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/port-charlotte-10-year-old-whisky\/\">Port Charlotte<\/a>, heavily peated at 40ppm. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/distilleries\/the-botanist-gin\/\">The Botanist<\/a>, the first Islay dry gin. And Octomore, the world\u2019s most heavily peated whisky series.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_59562\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59562\" class=\"size-large wp-image-59562\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-1024x649.jpg\" alt=\"The rise of regenerative farming in whisky: No chem, no compromise\" width=\"770\" height=\"488\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-1024x649.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-768x487.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-380x241.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-1100x697.jpg 1100w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES-1200x760.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Harvest2021_1066LOW_RES.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-59562\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bruichladdich has done things its own way since its new millennium comeback<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><b>The Impossible Equation<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOctomore exists to provoke and challenge,\u201d says head distiller Adam Hannett. Too young, too strong, too peaty, it shouldn\u2019t work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet it does, precisely because it doesn\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Octomore has a chewiness and waxiness that you wouldn\u2019t expect, given Bruichladdich has big stills with long lyne arms that refine its spirit. It\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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\u2019t one-dimensional.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The .1 is always the benchmark, the .2 plays with cask alchemy, the .3 showcases Islay barley, and later this year, there\u2019s a .4: a finale in virgin French oak. We don&#8217;t have the latter, but the other three get the MoM treatment today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s get to tasting. <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_59996\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59996\" class=\"size-large wp-image-59996\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"Octomore Series 16: seeing through the smoke\" width=\"770\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-1024x640.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-768x480.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-380x238.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-1100x688.jpg 1100w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16-1200x750.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Octomore-16.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-59996\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We tasted Octomore Series 16<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/octomore-16-1-whisky\/\"><b>Octomore 16.1 \u2013 the benchmark<\/b><\/a><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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\u2019s the launchpad of the series. Pure, elemental Octomore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Tasting notes:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Nose:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Palate:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Dense smoke balanced by waxy honey, Harvest Chewee Cereal Bar, stone fruit, toasted oak, and chocolate richness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Finish:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Lingering, smoky, and mineral, with cocoa and a touch of cockles and mussels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[product]sku_142590[\/product]<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/octomore-16-2-whisky\/\"><b>Octomore 16.2 \u2013 the cask experiment<\/b><\/a><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s where things get interesting. 16.2 uses the exact same barley and peat level as 16.1, but it\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Tasting notes:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Nose: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Palate: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We&#8217;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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Finish:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Punchy and powerful, with a sweet smattering of spice, dark fruit and smoked nuts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[product]sku_142591[\/product]<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_40087\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40087\" class=\"size-large wp-image-40087\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Bruichladdich-Distillery-1024x554.jpg\" alt=\"The Nightcap: 3 September\" width=\"770\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Bruichladdich-Distillery-1024x554.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Bruichladdich-Distillery-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Bruichladdich-Distillery-768x415.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Bruichladdich-Distillery.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-40087\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Bruichladdich Distillery<\/p><\/div>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whiskies\/bruichladdich\/octomore-16-3-whisky\/\"><b>Octomore 16.3 \u2013 the Islay original<\/b><\/a><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the archetypal Octomore. It&#8217;s distilled from Concerto barley grown on Octomore Farm itself, peated to a staggering 189.5ppm, then matured in bourbon, Sauternes, and Pedro Xim\u00e9nez casks, before being bottled at 61.6% ABV. It\u2019s all local grain, monstrous smoke, and a tapestry of coastal complexity. The very essence of Islay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Tasting notes:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Nose: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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&#8217;ll be amazed at how graceful the smoke is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Palate:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Orchard fruit, stone fruit, peanut brittle, crawfish, and honeyed barley.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Finish:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Monumental. It&#8217;s the word the brand uses, and it&#8217;s the right word. Waves of smoke and sea crash away in your mouth for an age with apricot and chocolate and pepper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[product]sku_142592[\/product]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can buy Octomore Series 16 from Master of Malt here: 16.1, 16.2, 16.3.\u00a0 \u201cOctomore can be more Bruichladdich than Bruichladdich is\u201d, says brand ambassador Bill Shearer.\u00a0 Octomore is where&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":59996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[893,746,19],"tags":[1959,235,735],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Octomore Series 16: Seeing Through the Smoke | Master of Malt blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Octomore Series 16 pushes peat to its limits with bold smoke, Islay terroir, radical casks, and 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