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Fahrenheit 173 - Aged Spirits
"I'm not an alcoholic, I'm an alcohologist"
Heavily peated shootout - Octomore vs Supernova | 10 May 2009 | ||
The Scottish island Islay is famous for its peaty single malts, and Ardbeg used to be the peatiest of them all. (Well, at least Ardbeg used the most heavily peated malt. Differently shaped stills allow different amounts of the peaty phenols to come through into the distillate and Ardbeg's got this thing called a "purifier" on its spirit still...)
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| Octomore | Ardbeg Supernova |
In 2002, the Bruichladdich distillery started producing its Octomore brand using malt peated to well over 100 ppm phenols. That's more than twice as much as at Ardbeg (where they normally use 50 ppm, AFAIK). Apparently, the folks at Ardbeg couldn't let this go unanswered... Or maybe they had the same idea at the same time? =) Anyway, earlier this year Ardbeg announced the Supernova, the most heavily peated Ardbeg ever, peated to "over 100 ppm".
Of course, this begs for a comparison of the two peat monsters... Here's my take:
Octomore Edition 01.1 63.5% (peated to 131 ppm):
Pungent, very peaty, earthy nose with cereal and iodine but there's also a delicate note of mint. Weird, but I like it!
Earthy, musty palate, also quite sweet. Very peaty, of course, and there's a chemical note as well (must be all those phenols!).
Powerful and brutal but entertaining! Very peaty finish with a note of mint. Very nice!
Even though it isn't older than the "futures" bottling,
"Edition 01.1" seems more mature. It's also more powerful (even with water).
(85 p)
Ardbeg Supernova 58.9% (peated to over 100 ppm):
Very peaty nose, also fruity with a hint of mint.
The palate is, somewhat unexpectedly, at first quite sweet and fruity, but it's drying
and develops lots of peat. Very peaty, very nice finish with a lingering note of iodine.
All in all, it's milder than the Octomore and more civilized. But don't get me wrong,
the Supernova certainly packs a powerful punch of peat! =)
(86 p)
In terms of peat, the Octomore is in a class of its own! The "Edition 01.1" is an improvement over the "futures" bottling but I still think Octomore needs a few more years in wood. Ardbeg's Supernova is milder and less peaty but I prefer it over the raw Octomore. I missed the opportunity to buy the Committee bottling of Supernova, but I'm not going to miss it when it goes on sale here in Sweden on June 1!
Thanks to Bernhard for the sample of Octomore!
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