The Port Charlotte Case, Part 2


February 20, 2025

The Port Charlotte Case, Part 2

Already five PCs down the hatch, let's keep going...

Port Charlotte 21 yo 2001/2022 (55.7%, Malt Grain & Cane, Miles Whisky Bar, rum barrel, cask #263, 168 bottles)

The first vintage! Here we are in Singapore, and there’s a reference to Bruce Lee on the label rather than Miles Davis. Well, well… Colour: white wine. Nose: not entirely sure what type of rum cask this was, but we’re very much in mineral and fermentary territory—always a good thing. Extinguished ashes in an old fireplace, olive brine, clay, grated lemon zest… There’s a chiselled edge to this that we always enjoy. The peat isn’t huge here. With water: freshly shorn virgin wool from a sheep. An Islay sheep, of course. And a hint of new tweed from the Islay Woollen Mill, while we’re at it. Mouth (neat): this is very good and has a distinct ‘easternmost distillery on the south coast’ vibe. It’s also much more brutal than on the nose. With water: a little softened but still taut and ultra-precise, on ashes, lemon, seawater, and green apple. Finish: much the same, with perhaps a few toasted almonds and pistachios. A hint of oyster in the aftertaste. Comments: this one took us on a journey to Islay. Excellent.
SGP:466 - 89 points.

Port Charlotte 13 yo 2009/2022 (60.3%, Rest & Be Thankful, bourbon barrel, cask #511, 225 bottles)

Colour: white wine. Nose: the bourbon cask’s vanilla wraps itself around a peat that leans more towards smoked almonds and basalt, though at this strength, it’s best to add water… With water: even more ashes than in an old, disused kiln. And olives! Mouth (neat): a very unexpected fruitiness, mostly lemon and pear, coated in a crust of herbs and smoked hay. Smoking dishes with hay remains in vogue among quite a few chefs, and I often find it excellent. With water: perfect, precise, beautifully simple. Lemon, ashes, smoked fish, shellfish, and a touch of juniper. Feels almost Scandinavian, doesn’t it? Finish: long, always very precise, almost minimalist. Lemon, ash, olives. Comments: it loves water.
SGP:477 - 88 points.

Port Charlotte 15 yo 2002/2017 ‘Double Wood’ (59.4%, Private Cask Kjell Öberg, hogshead, reracked in a Haut-Brion hogshead, cask #0002, 267 bottles)

One of those crazy private casks from the early days. Haut-Brion doesn’t use hogsheads, of course, and I doubt anyone would have poured twelve bottles of the famous 1er Cru Classé into an HHD to season it, which suggests this must have been coopered using some ex-Haut-Brion barrique staves. Colour: young apricot (light pink hues). Nose: you can still feel the wine, with this particularly earthy touch, then leather and pipe tobacco, with hints of prunes and candied cherries. Rather a lot of Merlot in red Haut-Brion. Dunnage and humus. With water: it leans towards stalks, pips, the garden bonfire (sadly banned for quite a few years now), but also fennel. Mouth (neat): really rich and sweet, dare we say even merloty, yet never dissonant. Impossible not to think of cherry wood smoke. Interesting. With water: oh, this is very good, really packed with cherry liqueur and smoked pepper. Finish: very long, drier, more on the Cabernet’s green pepper. Comments: Haut-Brion is, roughly speaking, 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernets. Well, you can tell. The whole remains unusual, but very lovely.
SGP:667 - 87 points.

Port Charlotte 21 yo 2003/2024 (53.4%, Acla Selection, Ski Ladies, barrel, cask #664)

Always those lovely Art Deco-style labels. Colour: straw. Nose: the purity of a good barrel with a tip-top distillate. It’s simple, it’s luminous, it’s obvious, it’s flawless. Lemon, seawater, ashes, peat smoke, wool, proper pizza dough, and seaweed. With water: not much change, but no complaints—it was perfect from the start. Mouth (neat): sheer perfection. Exotic fruits emerge—passion fruit, pink grapefruit—all set against peat and two or three olives. Twenty years changes everything. With water: exceptional lemony and peppery freshness, with truly magnificent bitterness, Italian-style. Finish: much the same, lingering for quite a while. Have our Italian friends ever thought of smoking limoncello? Massimo? Comments: twenty years ago, we used to joke, saying, ‘it’s phenolmenal!’ Well, twenty-one years later, it is indeed phenolmenal.
SGP:566 - 91 points.

Well, a large part of what came from Bruichladdich has still been affected by wine. Another example…

Port Charlotte 17 yo 2002/2020 (52.3%, The Cask Whisperer, Jim McEwan's Private Stock, French red wine cask, 218 bottles)

Lovely, though it would be good to know which French red wine, given that, last I checked, we do produce more than 12 million hectolitres of the stuff per year. This comes from yet another cask in Big Jim McEwan’s personal reserve. Colour: gold. Nose: rather gentle, quite honeyed, leaning more towards sweet white wine than a bold Cabernet, Syrah or Pinot Noir, though there is indeed a touch of blueberry jam. The rest drifts between a relatively soft peat, green pepper and some vegetal earthiness. With water: old tweed and cherry jam. Mouth (neat): an impression of fusion—peaty whisky meets blood orange juice and watermelon liqueur, if you've ever had the pleasure of tasting such a thing. With water: a lovely cocktail of peat, citrus (tangerines) and honey. Finish: medium length, with a fine freshness despite the red wine, which turns increasingly fruity, think strawberries and raspberries. Comments: still very, very good, even if the wine hints somewhat at Gamay. The peat remains rather gentle.
SGP:656 - 85 points.

It was the bourbon barrel that dominated the discussions today. No surprise there. We’ll see how it turns out next time…

Check the index of all Port Charlotte we've tasted so far