PORT CHARLOTTE 18 YEAR
2025 ReleaseMASH BILL – 100% malted barley
PROOF – 103
AGE – 18 years
DISTILLERY – Bruichladdich Distillery
PRICE – $241
WORTH BUYING? – almost yes! Because $$$ not taste.
My intro to Port Charlotte was at a 2018 Bruichladdich tasting event, organized by my local Facebook whisky group in the upstairs loft of a San Francisco bar called Forgery, sadly lost to pandemic-era closures.
The rep from Bruichladdich lined up five glasses for us, placed in order from lower to higher peat intensity. It was an incredible range, including standard releases alongside specialties like the Octomore series. The highlight of the flight was the Bruichladdich Black Art—what edition I now can’t recall. It was well-aged, massively peated, incredibly complex and way too easy to drink.
Three years later I picked up a bottle of the Port Charlotte 10 Year. I thoroughly enjoyed how it conjured a beach BBQ, with seafood, grilled meat, and some decadent caramel and chocolate desserts. Then a year+ ago I tried the Classic Laddie, a perfectly fine if not particularly eventful pour. And now this 18 Year.
That my forays into Bruichladdich since that 2018 intro have been somewhat few and far between is not a reflection of my assessment of their whiskies. It’s simply that there’s a lot of whisky out there and I tend to favor new experiences. So when this Port Charlotte 18 Year came along at a decent price for such things, I figured its ripe old age and the interesting range of casks involved would offer a new enough experience. I used my impending birthday as an excuse to $plurge on it.
I was scheduled to work late on my birthday. When I got home, after throwing together some dinner I cracked the bottle open. Peaty, earthy, fruity, chocolatey, it was a perfectly excellent dram to toast a special day. Right out of the gate, the blend of casks involved in this 2025 vatting achieved a wonderful complexity. The cask breakdown is as follows:
- 53% 1st fill bourbon casks
- 31% 2nd fill sherry casks
- 16% aged initially in sherry casks for 11 years, before being re-casked into Virgin French Oak for ~5 years, then re-casked again into 2nd fill bourbon barrels for another ~2 years.
As much as I enjoyed it, I sensed at uncorking the whisky was still a bit tight. With time to air out, I hoped it would open up a bit more.
So here we are, six days after uncorking and three pours into the bottle. These brief notes were taken using a traditional Glencairn.
COLOR – buttery yellows with honeyed and orange highlights
NOSE – gentle yet complex, with a soft but strong earthy peat, smooth granite, sand, salt, vanilla, an orchard stone-fruitiness like peach and white nectarine, fleshy ripe melon, some tropical fruitiness like pineapple softened by baking
TASTE – very like the nose, only a notch brighter and more vivid, with the various fruit notes tangier, the vanilla tilting into sweet caramel, a gritty prickle from the heat and some oaky cask spices
FINISH – leaves a gently numbing warmth, with that earthy peat, stone, oak, the fruit and candy notes now more faint
OVERALL – mature, complex, lively, as rugged as it is refined
The overall combination of rugged and refined qualities is what strikes me most here. The elemental earthy notes in contrast with the sweet fruit and candy notes. The texture at once smooth and gritty. Like a stone bothy on a grassy crag overlooking a beach, where the iron stove keeps you warm yet the sandy seaside winds still manage to whip their chill into the room. Cozy and rustic.
There’s also a liveliness to it. Someone’s playing the fiddle and banjo. People are dancing in the crowded cottage. There’s a platter of grilled seafood and meats, some vegetable stew, and fresh fruits with honey and caramels for dessert. And this Port Charlotte 18 Year to sip!
The atmosphere this whisky conjures is so vivid, I’m tempted to pack the bottle and a glass up and hop a bus down to San Francisco’s old dilapidated Sutro Baths, overlooking the Pacific ocean. The sky is alternately blue and grey today, the clouds moving along at the insistance of an erratic whipping wind, revealing and concealing the sun from minute to minute. (San Francisco in the summer!) Perfect for a whisky like this.
At $220 before tax it ain’t cheap. I very much enjoy it. It’s quality whisky in every way. But purely as a tasting experience, I’d be satisfied paying less for other high quality peated pours, like the Port Charlotte 10 Year or Ardbeg’s Corryvreckan.
Or maybe I just need to pour it in its proper environment. Off to the seaside I go…!
Sláinte!
The Right Spirit 