Let’s keep the Edradour train going a little bit longer. This week will be a week of wine-bothered peated whiskies but we’ll begin with a Ballechin—which, as you know, is the name of the peated variant of Edradour. A slightly dangerous start to the week: I really did not like the first Edradour last week and that was from a marsala cask; well, this Ballechin is also from a marsala cask. Let’s hope for the best.

Ballechin 10, 2010, Marsala Cask (59.1%; from a bottle split)

Nose: Sweet, slightly rubbery peat off the top. The rubber is in the vein of gaskets on old medicine bottles. The peat gets more vegetal/organic on the second sniff: a damp, mossy log behind which some small furry creature is rotting. As it sits a fair bit of ash comes through the smells of  damp rot and there’s some fruit behind it too (orange peel, a bit of plum); some charred meat as well. With more time the peat wallop softens a bit; the salt is more palpable here too now. Mellower still with a squirt of water; still a lot of smoke but the organic/vegetal notes are gone; the salt and the citrus come to the fore too now.

Palate: Comes in with the ashy peat in the lead and the citrus behind; not as vegetal/organic here. Turns very salty as I swallow. A big bite at full strength but not unapproachable; decent texture. Continues in this general vein for a while but with a lot more time and air it mellows nicely: there’s less ash now and less salt and is generally more balanced. Okay, let’s see what water does for it. It pulls the ash and salt back out a bit again but doesn’t really bring out anything new.

Finish: Long. The salt expands and the ash expands with it. Both fade out slowly together. That rubbery note re-emerges and lingers in the background. With time the rubber disappears and the salt and ash recede a , but tar takes their place for a more bitter finish. Not much new here with water either.

Comments: For a full-term marsala cask maturation, the wine is not really very pronounced. Or maybe it’s the case that the whisky was so heavily peated that it blew the wine influence away. Anyway, between the heavy peat and the high abv, I found this a bit too much neat. Time and then water mellowed  it and made it more approachable but didn’t make it terribly interesting.

Rating: 84 points.