The Malt Nuts Take on UIWs (Unidentified Islay Whiskies)

Last week at the Malt Nuts we sat down to a table filled with unidentified Islay whisky to celebrate the group’s 5th anniversary and 50th tasting. We generally don’t know anything about the bottles wrapped in paper except the distillery it comes from, – unless we brought one of the specimens for that night’s dissection, discussion and enjoyment – but this night was even more mysterious than most. Everything being brought in had to be not only an unidentified Islay whisky, but also bottled at cask strength.

Though considering the knowledge base of this group “unknown” is a relative term. Between the studious insight of the main Malt Nut Barry, the seemingly bottomless well of information that is the WhiskyRedhead and the aggregated knowledge of the group we knew the most-likely culprit behind the whisky in each bottle. How did we do it? Part of it was internet research to find out if something has already been verified by someone else, part of it was knowing or finding out which distilleries the bottlers have relationships with and finally some of it was olfactory and consensus based.

As usual we gathered in the backyard of one of our fellow Malt Nuts, dined on some tasty Kosher vittles and then got down to business of whisky, but we didn’t dive into the peat right away. We started the night by tasting the Deanston, Glen Keith, Ben Nevin and Highland releases from Exclusive Malts which I’m not going to talk about here because I already covered them, except the Highland, in the the Fall 2015 Exclusive Malts Releases post. After running through those 4 we dove right in to the peaty end of the pool, but still didn’t cross into the territory of the unidentified islay whisky.

Main Malt Nut Barry started us off by passing around bottles that were representative of the 5 distilleries that were possibly going to be in attendance this evening. We then had to guess which distiller (1-5) each was and I’m happy to report I nailed them all after receiving a thinly veiled hint about #5 being Caol Ila. The five we started with were Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Kilchoman, Ardbeg and Caol Ila and after priming the peated pump we were on to the main event. Because they were all “the same” there were no A, B, C, etc. rounds like we usually do and instead we just went right through all 13 blinded bottles of Unidentified Islay Whisky (UIW) without any specific groupings or breakdowns.

Unidentified Islay Whiskies 1-5

UIW 1: The Big Smoke – Duncan Taylor (60%)
Suspected Distillery: Ardbeg

• Nose: Smoke, malt, salt, iodine, citrus and a touch of cocoa.
• Palate: Smoke, malt, citrus, salt, iodine, spice.
• Finish: Smoked meat, earth and a touch of spice.
• Overall: B (83-86) This one was particularly interesting because it was labeled as a blended malt, but some folks swore it was actually a teaspooned malt making it 99.9% single malt but had to be labeled as a blended malt due to said teaspooning. Pretty good stuff.

UIW 2: Finlaggan Cask Strength – The Vintage Malt Whisky Co. (58%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Vanilla, honey, malt, smoke, butterscotch and prosciutto.
• Palate: Smoked meat, vanilla, honey, malt, dark sweets and spice.
• Finish: Smoke, malt, salt and hard candy.
• Overall: B+ (87-89) Really enjoyed this one. It had a nice spice, a thick full character and it opened nicely after a while. It’s a really nice whisky.

UIW 3: As We Get It – Ian Macleod (58.5%)
Suspected Distillery: Laphroaig

• Nose: Peat, new make sweetness, vanilla and honey.
• Palate: Peat, new make sweetness, vanilla, honey and red licorice.
• Finish: Peat, new make sweetness, vanilla, honey and butterscotch.
• Overall: C (73-76) Oh no… just no… no.

UIW 4: SMWS 29.174 A Ballerina at the barbeque – Single Malt Whisky Society (49.2%)
Suspected Distillery: Laphroaig

• Nose: Smoke, vanilla, honey, malt and a touch of nuts.
• Palate: Smoke, vanilla, honey, sweet malt and ash.
• Finish: Smoke, vanilla and cinnamon.
• Overall: B (83-86) A decent little Islay whisky. Would work well as a daily drinker.

UIW 5: An Islay – Exclusive Malts (54.6%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Smoke, cured meat, graham, vanilla, a bit of fruit and sweetness.
• Palate: Smoke , caramel, citrus, cinnamon, malt and fruit.
• Finish: Caramel, smoked meat, spice.
• Overall: A- (90-92) A lovely whisky through and through.

Unidentified Islay Whiskies 6-10

UIW 6: Single Minded Islay 6 years – Douglas Laing (48.8%)
Suspected Distillery: Caol Ila

• Nose: New make, peat, vanilla, lightly sweet and sticky.
• Palate: New make, vanilla and peat.
• Finish: Smoke, vanilla and grain.
• Overall: C (73-76) This bordered on a C-. it was so darn raw it was hard to handle (similar to #3).

UIW 7: Smoking Isaly – Blackadder (62.4%)

Suspected Distillery: Caol Ila or Lagavulin

• Nose: Peat, vanilla, nougat, dark sweets and almonds.
• Palate: Peat, malty sweetness, caramel and almonds.
• Finish: Peat, anise, spice and sweetness.
• Overall: B+ (87-89)

UIW 8: An Islay – Exclusive Malts (54.6%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Peat, malt, graham, fruit, dark sweet and iodine.
• Palate: Peat, fruit, citrus, sweets, malt, honey, spice and a touch of minerals.
• Finish: Smoke. malt, clove, fruit and anise.
• Overall: A- (90-92) This is literally the same whisky as #5 and what’s interesting is that I got slightly different notes, but guessed them both as being Lagavulin and rated them the same.

UIW 9: Ileach – Highlands & Islands Whisky co. (58%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Smoke, sweetness, complex spice (clove, anise, etc.), vanilla and a bit of astringency.
• Palate: Smoke, spice, sweetness, touch of earth and astringency.
• Finish: Smoke, caramel, wood and clove.
• Overall: A- (87-89) A great whisky that was complex, spicy and surprising. Loved every weird nuance about it.

UIW 10: Undisclosed Islay 7 years – Single Cask Nation (56.7%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Peat, honey, fruit, malty hay.
• Palate: Peat, vanilla, honey, fruit and salt.
• Finish: Smoke, malt, cocoa and smoked meat.
• Overall: B+ (87-89) This is some quality juice. Robust and smoky, but wasn’t coming across as complex as it was when I had it at an indie Lagavulin tasting.

Unidentified Islay Whiskies 11-13

UIW 11: Peat Reek 11 years – Blackadder (58.1%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin or Laphroaig

• Nose: Peat, vanilla, grain, spice, honey and a medicinal quality.
• Palate: Vanilla, peat, grain, citrus and that same medicinal quality from the nose.
• Finish: Peat, vanilla and fruit.
• Overall: B- (80-82) Didn’t taste 11 years old, tasted younger with an almost new make like quality to the amount of vanilla that was in there.

UIW 12: Classic of Islay – The Vintage Malt Whisky Co. (56%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Smoke, malt, graham, overripe fruit and caramel.
• Palate: Smoked meat, graham, overripe fruit, caramel and honey.
• Finish: Smoke, herbs, fruit and earth.
• Overall: B+ (87-89) Lovely little peated whisky from Islay. I could drink this all night and be perfectly satisfied.

UIW 13: Ileach – The Highlands & Islands Whisky Co. (58%)
Suspected Distillery: Lagavulin

• Nose: Smoke, vanilla, marzipan, butterscotch frosting.
• Palate: Smoked meat, marzipan, butterscotch frosting and a touch of citrus.
• Finish: Smoke, caramel and sweetness.
• Overall: B (83-86) A tasty whisky, but dominated by smoke and sweet in a way that threw it a bit off balance.

If you’ve been counting along we tasted our way through 22 bottles that night and it’s by far been the biggest Malt Nuts event I’ve been to. I’ve enjoyed every Malt Nuts meeting I’ve been to, but this has been my favorite to-date and not because of its size, but because it was fun to compare and contrast. To make guesses and then see how it all panned out against the presumed identities of whisky with no publicly acknowledged names.

No one got 100% (I got 8 out of 13) but it was a lot of fun to use our olfactory detective skills to try and deduce who the most likely culprit was behind each Bastard Malt and then see how we fared. Events like these are always a ton of fun and help expand your own whisky knowledge and experience and I highly recommend you try setting something like this up yourself if you’re able.

Hope you enjoyed the recount of the evening and until next time… cheers!