In the Bruichladdich distillery, from the 2013 New Yorker article.
The other day we commented on how we tend to stick with “better” choices in food and drink, using under-$100 Islay Scotch whiskey as an example. What would we do if we had all the money in the world and no compunction about how to spend it? Well, we might spring for this $600 Bruichladdich which just popped up on K&L Wines…. And therein hangs a story.
Back in 2013 the New Yorker ran a beautiful piece (which was reprinted in their food issue this past fall 2021) on the current owner of Bruichladdich (pronounced “Brook Laddie”), Mark Reynier. It seems that in 1994 Reynier had arrived at the gates of the distillery on a bicycle and asked if he could have a tour of the facility. But a sign indicated that the distillery was permanently closed, and when Reynier pressed the issue a worker inside the gate told him to “fuck off”.
It was then and there that Reynier resolved to buy the distillery and put it back into operation. As a London-based wine dealer with plenty of contacts in the industry, he actually had the knowledge and the resources to do so. In 2001 he and a consortium of investors bought Bruichladdich and began making whisky again. In 2011 they released the “Laddie Ten”, a $50 bottle (and thus within our price range) which they considered their flagship product. I hated it. Unlike all other Islays it is unpeated, which for me means it was short on flavor and unappealing at any price point.
Which is why I was so delighted that K&L has turned up a 1992 batch of Bruichladdich, from way back before the brewery closed. The review is unusually brief (maybe because few or no reviewers actually got to taste it) but compelling: “Black Art 9.1 marks the oldest Black Art released yet at 29 years of age. While the cask recipe of this 1992 distillate is a closely guarded secret, it is the bottled magic of mind and heart from Head Distiller Adam Hannett. Unpeated. Unparalleled.”
I am hoping that one of our readers will have the means and the initiative to buy a bottle. (You’d also have to be in a state where it can be shipped unless you pick it up yourself in CA, not a bad proposition.) If you do, please report back.
