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The author bought a cask of Bruichladdich for his wedding day in 2006, planning to bottle it in 25 years. Here’s the story so far.
As I stood in my kilt about to deliver my groom’s speech in front of my bride, our parents, friends, and relatives, I was about to reveal a secret—even to my bride. This was 2006, and our fairytale wedding reception in a picturesque Scottish village was in full swing. After praising my wife and thanking the wedding party, I lifted my dram and invited everyone to charge their glasses for a toast. At this moment, I revealed that I’d ordered a cask to be filled at Bruichladdich Distillery to mark the occasion of our wedding. Furthermore, my intention was to bottle this whisky for our silver wedding celebration in 25 years’ time, when guests at our party could take home a bottle of whisky that was as old as our marriage. In a burst of enthusiasm from our guests, the bar’s supply of Bruichladdich soon ran dry as everyone slaked their thirst during the ceilidh, a traditional Scottish dance.
Bruichladdich, silent since 1994, was reopened in 2001 by a team led by Mark Reynier and Simon Coughlin. They persuaded Jim McEwan to join as master distiller from Bowmore, and brought back distillery manager Duncan McGillivray. My then-girlfriend and I had toured distilleries for a few years, and her whisky epiphany came at Edradour Distillery, when her face burst into a huge smile after she sipped a dram. We visited Islay and its famous distilleries in 2004, taking a tour of Bruichladdich led by a young tour guide named Adam Hannett. Before we left the gift shop, I picked up a brochure on Bruichladdich cask ownership.
I returned to Islay in 2014, where I joined Jim McEwan for a distillery tour and sampled my then-8 year old whisky, purchased for £750 (approximately $1,500), aging in a bourbon barrel in warehouse 12. I chatted with him about my ambitions for the cask, and he delivered his prognosis on the whisky’s future progression. “This will be wonderful at 10 years old, it will peak around 16 years old, but then the cask might take over,” he said. I nodded attentively, sipping my barrel sample. “So if you want to get it to 25 years, just give us a ring, and we’ll re-rack it into a different cask for you,” he added.
Bruichladdich released a number of classics in 2006, like PC5, Blacker Still, and the 125th anniversary bottling, but a lot has changed over 18 years since my cask was filled. The distillery was acquired by Rémy Cointreau in 2012. Now that Bruichladdich had some major financial backing, its cask program was discontinued that same year. McGillivray retired in 2014 and Mc- Ewan retired the following year. Hannett became Bruichladdich’s head distiller, and I reached out to see if McEwan’s prediction had come true. With under seven years to go, I would put the fate of re-casking my barrel in Hannett’s hands, no matter what he proposed. As it happened, he had become a cask owner around the same time as me.
Hannett informed me that the private casks were subject to Bruichladdich’s new cask-filling policy from 2001 onward of not reducing the spirit strength to a standard 63.5% ABV. McGillivray’s adage was ‘We don’t believe in maturing water,’ a practice that also helps the spirit age longer. “Jim was seeing 16 years [for the old stock to reach peak maturation], but I’m seeing it hit that sweet spot at older ages,” advises Hannett. “It’s given it more aging potential.” The magic of maturation requires slow evaporation to build flavor, character, viscosity, texture, and mouthfeel: It just takes time.
My wedding whisky is now 61% ABV, but it was filled at 70–71% ABV in 2006. It loses approximately 2% volume and 0.7% ABV each year. “We’re exposed to the marine air on the west coast,” explains Hannett, “We’ve got gales coming in, and all the trees on Islay grow sideways.” With maturation by the sea, the salty tang has influenced the whisky’s flavor over the past 18 years.
The good news is that Hannett gave my wedding whisky two thumbs up after tasting a sample. “It’s a tremendous cask,” enthuses Hannett. “It’s got stone fruit, melon, peach, and apricot, there’s coconut, chocolate, tobacco, and oak, with a classic vanilla character coming through. It’s absolutely incredible, and has a lot of similarities to Bruichladdich Eighteen.” Hannett rules out re-casking it into a red wine cask, as the added fruit and French oak tannins would change the character, putting the Bruichladdich DNA qualities at risk. A fresh bourbon cask might supercharge certain flavors, he suggests, promoting sweetness and highlighting vanilla and coconut notes, but it could compromise the complexity and depth created by the salty, citrus, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger accents. Sauternes casks can rescue over-oaked barrels by boosting peach, apricot, melon, and citrus notes, but Hannett feels my cask is not in danger.
First-fill bourbon casks naturally become less active over time, and so don’t overwhelm their contents like first-fill sherry or wine casks. Similarly, Hannett advises against re-casking into an inactive cask that’s already been filled three or four times. “With American oak’s tight grain and sweet, gentle style, I’d have a lot of confidence in leaving it as it is,” he says. “I think it’s an absolutely lovely dram, and this will be a really good, wellrounded whisky at 25 years old. The way it’s going to sit on the palate will be incredible. If this was my cask, I wouldn’t re-cask it.” Happily agreeing that Bruichladdich and bourbon casks do make the perfect marriage after all, I say yes to the cask.
