Port Charlotte PC8
60.5% abv
Score: 89.5/100
Ar Duthchas. Land Of Our Heritage. The 4th release in Bruichladdich’s Port Charlotte ‘PC’ series. Not the best of the bunch, but certainly a more than worthwhile addition to the range.
With this expression we’re back to the mix of bourbon and madeira casking we saw with PC6. The result is similar, but there seems to be a little less of the playful nip of the earlier release, and a little more confident movement to the place where the fruits begin to fight back against the peat.
Nose: What else? Peat and smoke. Amplified clean cucumber and hints of dill. Toffee. Cola. Citrus zest. Hint of chocolate. Vanilla ice cream. Green and weedy. Iodine and seaweed. Wet rock. Licorice.
Palate: Fruitier delivery here than in early incarnations. Slightly (and I mean ‘slightly’) easier smoke. Sweeter and more caramel. Lemon drops. Oily and tarry. The finish is smoky and woody and moves on into green apple skins.
Most balanced of the PCs up to this point, but I miss the jagged tors of the earlier releases. A little more complex to be sure, but I personally lean to the more youthful bite.
– Reviewed by: Curt
– Photo: Curt
All Things Whisky 
I’ve got a PC 9 and I’m looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. Even with products with solid reputations (Octomore, Port Charlotte), buying Bruichladdich makes me nervous, because they are SUCH masters of spin and marketing. So far, oxidation time and bottle space seems to be key with some of these whiskies (Laddie Classic and Peat, for example), because, off the cork, they can be simply horrible but improve rapidly. As a whisky business model, I think Bruichladdich is very hard to beat, all the more so because I find its actual achievements in whisky open to debate and certainly not eclipsing those of distilleries that enjoy much less (self-generated?) hype.
Eloquent and dead-on. Can’t help but love ’em though. AND…they produce enough good whisky, with innovation in spades…to keep me coming v=back and passing ’em my hard-earned food stamps.