Bruichladdich Black Art 1990, Edition 04.1, 23 years, 1990, 49.2% abv.

Like all Black Arts, apparently no one knows the composition, but with this version the word on the street is that it was matured in a combination of American and French oak.

Nose: great body, thick red wine, cherry and grape juice, maybe some ripe plums.

Palate: weak body, undulating, virtually unstable texture, mid palate is a little spicey, back palate is black pepper spice, hints of honey. After some time the flavors converge to a light honeyed wet old steamed lotus leaves on the mid and mostly back palate. After even more time, the initial palate emerges as light leaf and wood put in a blender, hints of non-intense fermented black cherres.

Finish: short, slightly spicey, hints of honey, dandelion petals.

Dry glass: waxy.

Another intersting one from Bruichladdich, nose is solid, focused, small-sized fruits, but then the body of flavors are quite strangely distributed; some flavors are quite obvious and impactful, while some are there but weak and hard to recognize. The finish leaves much to be desired, but it's clean which gives a very good feeling to the taster (me). I didn't get smoke, peat, major wood, major greens, or super sweet sherry flavors. Unfortunately with time, all the flavors converge to a light, less intense, wet old steamed leaves/expired sherry/tannic flavor, along with several other random flavors, but it's not something I enjoy at this point in my life. This leads me to believe the composition might have included some sherry in it.

Grade: C-

Whiskyanalysis.com, 8.62 ± 0.60 on 12 reviews
Scotchwhisky, Dave Broom, 89 points
Whisky advocate, Dave Broom, 89 points

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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