Bruichladdich Black Arts 11.1 Scotch Review (2023)

Updated March 3, 2024

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

Bruichladdich (pronounced “bru-kla-dee”) is one of the distilleries that bucks against the popular image of Islay, the island of peat, or at least they do with one foot. They are one of the whisky-makers on the island that doesn’t do nothing but peated whisky, but that isn’t to say they have shunned the island’s identity entirely. Octomore is one such example, lauded as the most heavily peated single malt being made today. Another is Black Arts.

As the title implies, this is the eleventh year for Black Arts. This line is renowned not because it is so heavily peated, but because it is made using “pre-renaissance” casks, which is to say they were filled prior to Bruichladdich’s closure in 1994. The distillery stood closed for more than six years, so it was a brief gap in production, but a gap and change in management nonetheless. The exact details of Black Arts releases are kept secret, adding to the hype, so we have no idea what kind of cask stock was used for aging or the mix of peated and unpeated malt (if there is such a mix). The two statistics we do have is that it is a 24 year old single malt and bottled at 44.2% ABV.

The Scotch
The color of this whisky suggests some Sherry casks in the background, because it came out as dull bronze in color. Building on that first impression is the nose, which smacks of a freshly drained Sherry solera vat sitting on a straw-strewn, damp clay floor.

Sipping yields a bowl of dried fruits: raisins, sultanas, prunes, even a little something tropical in there, but that note is a non-descript one. The earthiness has moderated down to milk chocolate, but rising up on the back end is a new, but quite modest spicy aspect: a mere fleck of pepper and cumin. The character here is soft and restrained, and that spice is really too tiny to merit the descriptor “note.” It’s just enough to give the rest of the profile a little contrast.

The finish, however, rolls straight off that gossamer of spice, and opens with a peppery kick. It’s a jolt the first time around, but that fades swiftly down to dried tobacco leaf.

The Price
Although this bottle was a good bargain when I first wrote about it four months ago, it has since been listed at £395.00 with Bruichladdich itself. Some American online retailers are asking as much as $600.