Advent Calendar 2023: Day 17

Smoky Sunday and at least one participant's favorite among the Islay's core products. It's interesting to see if one's personal favorite will be discovered blindly. It's surprisingly challenging when you have all the world's whiskies as options. It's so easy to lead oneself astray or go along when someone else guesses the distillery nearby. That's why blind tasting is one of my favorite ways to enjoy whisky. Prejudices must be stripped away, and the decision about the quality of the whisky is made using only the senses.

Today we're at the Bruichladdich distillery and we have the 10-year-old whisky from the distillery's other smoky product line in the glass. That's of course Port Charlotte. The first Port Charlotte spirits were distilled in July 2001, so even though the distillery is been around forever, Port Charlotte is still a youngster in the whisky world. The first official Port Charlotte bottling, PC5, was released in 2006. The current 10-year-old bottling was released in 2018, going by the name "Port Charlotte Heavily Peated Islay Single Malt 10 Years Old," and it is bottled at 50% strength.