View topic - port charlotte

by **Grass Snake** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 12:48 pm

Does anyone know when this will be available, or where from, and how much?

thanks
Snake

by **Deactivated Member** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 2:22 pm

If you are desperate for a 5yo whisky, you could always try the stuff Glen Grant sells in Italy.

by **Drrich1965** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 2:57 pm

Nick Brown wrote:If you are desperate for a 5yo whisky, you could always try the stuff Glen Grant sells in Italy.

Save for the fact that the two whiskys probably are as different as too malts can get, not withstanding age. GG 5 is a malt I enjoy, but it is very light, soft, gently malty. From what I understand, PC5 is big, peaty, in your face....

by **Wave** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 3:33 pm

If it's anything like the 5yo Port Charlotte I sampled on Islay several months ago then this PC5 is definitely worth waiting for! It was rumored that it was going to be imported to the US. With just a limited release of 6000 bottles I'm not going to bet that it will 'eventually' get here so I'll be importing a couple of bottles of the PC5 myself as soon as it hits the shelves reportedly at LFW in November!

Cheers!

by **irishwhiskeychaser** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 3:54 pm

I think it's actually 6000 cases and not 6000 bottles but that still does not make things any better for world wide distribution.

by **hpulley** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:05 pm

None for Ontario, Canada

Looks like an Alberta trip will be required. So sad after enjoying a PC4 sample lately.

Harry

by **Lawrence** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:32 pm

Yes, It's arriving in Alberta mid November but in limited stock levels.

Lawrence

I have my name on several.

by **Deactivated Member** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:51 pm

Several!

There's plenty of other whisky out there too, and I'm sure there will be annual supplies of Port Charlotte for years to come.

by **Lawrence** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:58 pm

Nick Brown wrote:Several!

There's plenty of other whisky out there too, and I'm sure there will be annual supplies of Port Charlotte for years to come.

Not in my market there won't be.

by **vitara7** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:04 pm

PC5 was ment to hit the shelfs last week or the week before. the release of PC5 has been put down to "labeling problems" and wont hit the shelfs for a couple more weeks, prob start november

by **Spirit of Islay** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:51 pm

irishwhiskeychaser wrote:I think it's actually 6000 cases and not 6000 bottles but that still does not make things any better for world wide distribution.

6000 bottles only , in November .
Luckily i've got 2 dozen bottles of 4 1/2 yo PC to keep me going

by **adogranonthepitch** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:22 pm

gordo, you are a little swine!

rub our faces in it, why dont you! :cry:

as the fat lad from Lincolnshire cried into his beer!

PS Gordo, can you email so i can send you proof of the 50yo Talisker, do you want a sample my friend?

by **Spirit of Islay** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:38 pm

Thanks for the offer Chris but i wouldn't want to deprive you of your 50yo Talisker . Now If it had been a 50yo Farclas......
Perhaps you could swap it for some 5yo Glen Grant ? :twisted:

Now where is that open bottle of PC .....ahh here it is.......

by **kildalton** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:56 pm

Uhm...I've heard rumors that Gordon is going to give us all his stock of PC as a Christmas gift :lol:

(just kidding!)

by **Deactivated Member** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:26 pm

My guess is that Port Charlotte is intended to become the main brand of Bruichladdich and will be seen everywhere in a few years time.

I imagine the new people at the distillery immediately spotted two big problems: firstly, the whisky was not peaty (or very well thought of) and punters expect Islay whiskies to be peaty - and secondly the distillery name was unpronounceable to most people outside Scotland. The clever solution was to create a new peaty whisky with an easier name - significantly the first distillation they did - and sell it alongside the traditional style of spirit for a while. The old style whisky would be given every marketing trick in the book to shift the existing stock and the distillery would try to simplify the pronunciation of the name with their rather painful "brook laddie". I imagine in time, the Bruichladdich brand will become less of a regular feature and may be allowed to quietly die.

I wish the distillery wouldn't try to break pointless records and market every bottle as though it were something special when most of their fare is really quite ordinary. It just devalues the currency of a special limited edition and starves better whisky of publicity. But I genuinely wish them well in their Port Charlotte venture and if it is as good as people claim, then it should do well alongside the other peat monsters.

edited to correct my misspelling of Bruichladdich :oops:

proves my point, though!

by **hpulley** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:43 pm

You are misinformed. Port Charlotte is not a peat monster. The sample I've tried, at least, was nicely peated and smoky but not overly so at all; quite balanced in fact. Octomore is suppose to be the peat monster to which you refer; I haven't tried it yet.

The gentler islay dram is well known as just that. While many on the mainland have joined in an ill advised attempt to copy peaty islays, I don't think Bruichladdich will be replaced by Port Charlotte any time soon. Their existing customers enjoy the barely peated version as well (I know I do).

Starving better whisky of publicity? I don't love all that comes from Bruichladdich (the 10yo is going out of production but I won't be buying any more as I don't enjoy it) but they put out some very good stuff. Good marketing lets you sell poor products for good prices. At least they market their stuff! Most whisky companies seem to do nothing but send out brand embassadors which only preaches to the faithful for the most part.

Bruichladdich is making many different bottlings as they don't have a lot of stock right now. They don't have enough to make consistent standards so they're producing many different expressions. In 5 years time they should be able to put together standard offerings. Until then, naff casks get finished in esoteric wine casks to liven them up I guess. I don't enjoy the bizarre finishes so I don't buy them but others do and who am I to tell them not to?

Harry

by **kallaskander** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:07 pm

Hi there,

no Nick I do not think so. From what Jim was saying I think that a long term dream is to rebuild Loch Indaal Distillery at Port Charlotte under the name Port Charlotte. The PC would be distilled there in the future.
But it is not more than a dream till now. We can always hope. Until further notice the PC will be distilled at Bruichladdich and Bruichladdich will not go out of production. Why should it?
If all the world was keen on a peated Bruichladdich why not give the world what it wants? There would not be need to change the name at all. There are peated Laddies around, 3D, Moine Mhor, Waves and soon the 3D3. They were holding the place until the PC was ready to stand on its own feet. The malt was peated at about 40ppm, the whiskie will come out at the level of Bowmore, more or less. Unless the level of peat while malting will be raised. Now the question is will there be more peated Laddies? I think not.
When Jim took over he produced the Laddie he was thinking of with about 10ppm of peat and tried out sherry casks. He went back to unpeated Laddie and about 2ppm coming from the dilution with Islay water. His new Laddie as he wants it to be matures in bourbon caks. Never mind that there are exotic casks thrown in for marketing reasons now and then.

Greetings
kallaskander

by **Deactivated Member** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:11 pm

I took the info from the Bruichladdich website, which says of Port Charlotte: "distilled since 2001 and named after the ex distillery of the same name. This is heavily peated in the original 1881 style of Bruichladdich using Scottish Optic barley peated at 40 ppm."

Clearly an attempt to compete against the Islay peat monsters. It was the first spirit the new owners distilled, indicating to me where their priorities lie. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. The old spirit wasn't popular enough to sustain the distillery, and the name must have been something of an albatross, so why not change them?

Octomore looks like a novelty whisky and I can't imagine it will be a regular feature on whisky shelves - but who knows? If it flies, it might consign both Bruichladdich and Port Charlotte to the subs bench.

The brand ambassadors is an interesting concept. I use to like HP until I met their brand ambassadors. On the other hand, I have only good things to say about Glenfiddich since meeting theirs.

by **Wave** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:09 pm

The old style whisky would be given every marketing trick in the book to shift the existing stock and the distillery would try to simplify the pronunciation of the name with their rather painful "brook laddie". I imagine in time, the Bruichladdie brand will become less of a regular feature and may be allowed to quietly die.

Heck, most Americans can't even pronounce Glenfiddich right! :lol:

Cheers!

by **Photon** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:52 pm

Wave wrote:
Heck, most Americans can't even pronounce Glenfiddich right!

I have ordered Cline-leash and Cull Eela and got nothing but stares, despite the fact that bottles were between the bartender and myself. :roll:

-P

by **vitara7** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:31 pm

to be honest, i dont know what the fuss is about this pc5 release.
i got two bottles of the first bottling of pc back in 2004. cask number 286. there were 336 bottles out of the cask at 67.3%, i did buy one for the collection and one for getting tanned into. to be honest, i wish i had left it closed and opened somthing better.....

by **Spirit of Islay** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:13 pm

Todays postings on this thread haven't half cheered me up after a hard day at work , laughter is the best form of medicine ......
Anyway
Vitara7 - that was from a private cask , not a distillery offering and was bottled way too early , Even Bruichladdich (pronounced Brook Laddie) wouldn't release a single cask of 3yo (3 months and 3 days ?) from a Hogshead , i tried the PC hoggy i've got a share in at 3yo and it wasn't anywhere near ready (look at a teens imo) . I don't know why they bottled it ( to be the first?) but that was their option , they owned the cask .
A new bottling , especially an Islay , always causes excitement on it's release (well in most places anyway....) and i'm looking forward to putting it up against my Bloodtub .
I'm also looking forward to a few of the other Laddie releases , especially the new 12yo from 100% Ex-Bourbon casks , i love Laddie from a Ex-Bourbon , can't wait to sample a few of the others on my next trip over to the Queen of the Hebrides in November .
Just a shame i'm not looking forward to sampling the new Bogh Mor (Pronounced Bo'more) .........
Slainte
Gordon

by **Lawrence** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:43 pm

SoI said "the new Bogh Mor (Pronounced Bo'more) ........."

That'll put the cat among the pigeons for sure.

Bruichladdich has done an excellent job of saving a distillery from the wrecking ball and they have made a choice to spend their marketing budget on face to face tastings with their customers. I'd rather attend a Bruichladdich tasting than read a fancy ad in a magazine, wouldn't you????

They are also experimenting with lots of new options which is great, it's what many of us have been asking for. If Jim McEwan is to be believed (I do) then you will being seeing loads of Bruichladdich (similar to what we know now) matured in ex bourbon barrels. I think the Bruichladdich name is far from dead. He flew to the US to secure those very barrels especially for Bruichladdich spirit.

Also it should be remembered that Bruichladdich bottling runs are tiny when compared to other distilleries and it's their way of stimulating market attention with small new product runs.

This saves money for servicing bank debt and employing 40 odd islanders. I think thye're doing a great job and I hope they keep it up.

by **Spirit of Islay** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:59 pm

Lawrence wrote:SoI said "the new Bogh Mor (Pronounced Bo'more) ........."

That'll put the cat among the pigeons for sure.

I'm referring to the recently released 1990 Bowmore Lawrence .

Hear , Hear to your posting .

I wasn't that fond of the previous owners bottlings , apart from the Stillmans Dram , but Jims opened my eyes to the Old Lady .

Slainte
Gordon

by **Mr Fjeld** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:47 pm

If a Port Charlotte would be available in Norway (I doubt it) I'd buy it for sure. The fact that the distillery is saved and now up and running is good news. Innovation hasn't hurt anyone, but I'm not running to buy any or every new limited edition they release. Also, I actually like the Bruichladdich 10. It was one of the first single malts I tried and the pleasant fruitiness and pear character still manages to please me.

by **bamber** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 11:24 pm

I've got into 'Laddie a lot more this year. It is in my top 10 distilleries for sure now. However, I can't say I'm interested in PC 5yo.

Ardbeg and Laphroaig are proven peat monster creators, so when they produced their young offerings I was very keen to try them and they did not dissapoint.

But Bruichladdich has no recent 'form', when it comes to peated whiskies. It is the clean fruity malty nature of their stuff that appeals to me. The peated stuff they make is poorly integrated IMO.

Now for a small peaty rant:

IMO, most of these new peated whiskies are too expensive and not up to the big guns from Islay. I found that peated Benriach 10yo pretty filthy (this is the craziest score in JM's book) and the peaty Jura was nice to try, but there is no way I would consider another bottle. That new peated Edradour is ludicrously priced. It costs waaaaaaay more than the new Ardbeg OB. They need to extricate themselves from the bubble bath they are enjoying. There are other examples, I am sure.

PC 5yo. I'll pay £20 if it is CS and £15 otherwise.

by **Wave** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:07 am

I've always had a soft spot for Bruichladdich since it was the 1st Islay single malt whisky I ever bought, a 15yo (in a slotted wooden box) back in the early/mid 80's. A recent 15 year old 'Laddie seems better but then my tastebuds have had quite a ride in the last 20 some-odd years! :wink:

Cheers!

by **Deactivated Member** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:32 am

Bogha Mór – or Bogha Mòr in newspeak, I think.

The "Brook Laddie" idea is an invention of the current owners and they admitted this to me at Whisky Fringe - they said almost apologetically that I was quite right about the correct pronunciation but that it was not good for marketing. They then (second year running) described their whisky to me entirely in terms of woods and wines.

by **Scotchio** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:47 am

Can't say that I'm getting excited about these peated bandwaggon whiskies. Those Brook laddies ought to know better. The core expression is a classic of restrained complexity,why smother such a beauty with peat. I understand the idea of product diversification and recognise the necessity for Signatory and MM to get into their own distilleries but I'm too busy trying to get a handle on the core produce of the other 100 or so distilleries to waste my time exploring the numerous contrived variations on a theme produced at Arran, Edradour and Laddie. Glenmorangie started all this with their various finishes. I wonder what sort of Ardbeg variations will appear in the next ten years.

by **Wave** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:05 pm

Scotchio wrote:Can't say that I'm getting excited about these peated bandwaggon whiskies. Those Brook laddies ought to know better. The core expression is a classic of restrained complexity,why smother such a beauty with peat. I understand the idea of product diversification and recognise the necessity for Signatory and MM to get into their own distilleries but I'm too busy trying to get a handle on the core produce of the other 100 or so distilleries to waste my time exploring the numerous contrived variations on a theme produced at Arran, Edradour and Laddie. Glenmorangie started all this with their various finishes. I wonder what sort of Ardbeg variations will appear in the next ten years.

What is life without a little variety?
I live for variety whether it be food, song, whisky or women, it's all good!

Cheers!

by **Deactivated Member** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:18 pm

I think the point is that there is plenty of variety when you consider the core styles of 100 or so distilleries, various ages and independent bottlings. We don't need the artificial variety of the various silly finishes, names, labels and limited editions- at least not on the scale of some distilleries.

There will come a point when the market is saturated with collectibles and they will all lose their value - as Mr Tattie Heid once said, anyone care for a Ty Beanie?

by **hpulley** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:06 pm

Nick, if you owned a distillery and you could provide all the whisky everyone wanted, wouldn't you prefer that? Why have them buy peaty whisky from someone else if you can provide it? Why provide sherry casked whisky? Because you want to make as much money as you can!!! That is the point of a business, any and every business that wants to survive must make as much money as possible. Try to remember that it applies to whisky as well, no matter how romantic we want it to be it is actually about the mighty dollar/pound/euro/yen/yuan.

Harry

by **Deactivated Member** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:23 pm

Gosh - normally it is me going on about market forces and suggesting others have let their hearts rule their heads.

If I had a distillery, I would try to get the maximum profit but I don't know whether the best way would be to make lots of styles of whisky or not. There must be a lot of profit in knocking out blendfodder since that's what most distilleries do. But I haven't got a distillery and I have no love for distillery owners. I am a consumer and I would prefer to use my consumer's voice to lobby and persuade distillers to do what I want, and to persuade others to join my cause.

by **kildalton** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:47 pm

Honestly if I had a distllery I would make a good spirit for blending(that's the great part of business unless You're a real well known brand)and then I'll concentrate efforts in order of making small batches of top-class whisky for single malt lovers.

by **Scotchio** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:32 pm

I'm not denying that it may be necessary for a company with one distillery to produce a range of brands. It increases market presence and I assume it must work for them or they wouldn't be doing it. It just surprises me that people want so many variations of one malt. If I want sherry I go to speyside,peat I go to Islay and 100 plus other styles from 100 plus other distilleries and then there are the variations of individual casks just from a sherry or bourbon, number of fills and age angle. I also like to try and get a handle on the distillery flavour profile which is less than easy with some of these finishes. There is already too much variety for me to cope with. As a footnote I would be more than interested in trying some Port Charlotte when it has matured and settled and has gained the complexity of age. I've just been nosing some early 70s Brora and Ledaig,both mature examples of heavy peating at a distillery that doesn't always use heavy peat. Both are stunning as I hope Port charlotte and these other peated variants will be in 20 years time.

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