Bunnahabhain took a page from the Bruichladdich book by rebranding their different styles into different brands. Where Bruichladdich has the distillery name for the unpeated single malt, Port Charlotte for their peated whisky and Octomore for their liquid ashtrays, Bunnahabhain went with Moine for peated and Staoisha for heavily peated. Although, heavily peated in this case doesn’t mean the same as it does with Octomore.

Anyway, this is the heavily peated version, bottled two years ago by Archives. As far as I know it never really showed up on the website, and according to Whiskybase (which should be reliable in this situation, it being the same company and such), this was a regular release. Not a specific market, so I guess it was one for the ‘Friends of the Base’ and possibly only available in the shop.

I only managed to get a bottle through on of the people more involved in Whiskybase, and shared it two years ago when it came out. Not a lot of people were interested in a very young, heavily peated Bunna, so I ended up with a significant amount for myself. Which leads to the second act.

In the spring of 2022 my friends and I went to Arran for a week of, well, Scotland. We visited the distillery, did some hikes, had some barbecue. Things like that. One of the hikes was all the way up to the summit of Goatfell. By the time we got up there is was still below zero degrees and to warm up I brought a sizeable sample of this. It sure hit the stop and something warming in us, as we stood in the cold looking out to Islay, Jura, Campbeltown and Northern Ireland in the distance.

So, this one does hold a special place in my heart, just because of that.

Sniff:
There’s a lot of peat on this one. Smoke too, but the earthy notes of peat are not completely burnt off. There’s barley too, and green twigs and mosses. Lichen, even. It’s very reminiscent of the surroundings of Bunnahabhain. There’s a slight leathery scent in the background as well.

Sip:
The palate is very sharp, even after another cask strength dram. It being up there, near 60% is very noticeable. There’s dry peat and soil, lichen and minerals. Some seaweed, barley and moss. A hint of green apples in the background, but the leathery note is gone.

Swallow:
The finish is a big one. It goes down in flames, in a way. It’s slightly more woody, twig like. Quite long too, with dry, mineral-y, lichen notes lingering longest.

This one does things by the book. Everything you expect of a young Bunnahabhain and heavy peat is here. Luckily, it’s not a one trick pony that does just that and nothing else. Quite some flavors are to be discovered and the ‘coastal forest’ thing it has going on is very nice indeed!

A shame it’s gone…

87/100