How Much Peat for Your Scotch?

[sparroa]

Light to moderate peatiness, at most.
I've lost my taste for Islays. Highland Park 12 year is as smoky as it gets for me these days and even that is not a bottle I regularly reach for.
I appreciate the sweet and subtle flavours of the malts most of all.
I suppose it isn't much different than my pipe journey - my enthusiasm for latakia quickly petered out and I have been enjoying Virginias ever since.

 

[bluto]

Sweet and subtle malts abound , this is the beauty of a good sms scotch / whisk(e)y
Highly recommend green spot

 

[mortonbriar]

Laphroaig is my perfect landing place, but if it weren't for the price difference lagavulin would probably join it more often. Ardbeg is over the edge for my palate.
Isaac

 

[bluto]

On another thread , there is a discussion about corporate ownership and integration of different tobacco houses
Did you know Japanese interests are aggressively buying up distilleries ..

 

[buster]

I recently picked up Laphroaig double wood. It will be opened when the weather starts to cool down. I've got two nine bottle wine racks I'm working on filling with single malts. I told myself I wouldn't open a bottle till the racks are full. I'm 3 bottles away from that goal. Two empty spaces on the smoky peaty side. One on the lighter side. Decisions decisions, what to buy next?

 

[beefeater33]

I normally like the peatiest I can get........ Ardbegs, Laphroigs, etc.

I've been enjoying a milder one of late, and cheap too..... Old Pulteney 12 year old............. I quite like it, I've got two kids in college, so,.. I quite like it................ :wink:

 

[molach95]

I've never been that big a fan of peaty whiskies. I like them but they're not my first choice. I grew up drinking Highland Park (since I was a child) which has just enough smokiness to it, and I also enjoy the more maritime whiskies like Old Pulteney. My favourites are actually Highland single malts that have a lot of deep flavours without as much mineral qualities - my "local" whiskies, as it were, e.g. Glendronach, Dalmore, Edradour and sweeter ones like Glenmorangie and Aberfeldy.
My brother loves Talisker but I lived on the Isle of Skye for a brief period - I am convinced I can taste Skye water in the dram, which wouldn't be an issue but where I stayed the tap water was always warm and unpleasant. It reminds me of a winter on Skye - pitch dark after 4pm and wet all the time, no snow. So wet and damp you're never dry, even indoors.

 

[eaglewriter1]

It depends. Sometimes I realy like something with a lot of peat smoke like Laphroig and other times I would rather have some sherryed Higland-Whisky without any Peat. But if I had to choose . Definitly rather more smokiness then less. I realy like the seawater/coastal notes of peated Islay Whiskys.

 

[bluto]

Some reports suggest the isle of Islay will run out of peat around the year 2020 .
True , they can tap other sources of peat to harvest around the world , I live near a source , but the Islay peats are a finite nonrenewable resource ... all gone ...

 

[eaglewriter1]

Well Peat is kind off reneaweable but it takes decades if not centurys to form so with the current whisky boom yeah the local sources are never going to keep up with demand. Still I would not be too worried as in this case I would argue Peat is Peat and the destilling process and duration of smoking the barley is what is important.

 

[oldmansmoking]

Don’t really like single malts or peat in my whisky, prefer Famous Grouse.

 

[bluto]

There is no peat n whisky
Peat is burned , as it was for central heating years ago , like coal . The heat and smoke is used to dry malted barley which by design or accident left a distinctive phenolic iodine taste in the final product . . after years of aging in oak casks , single malt scotch (whisky) s finally ready .
I have been in pubs where customers were refused service because they ordered SMS with soda , ice and even soft drink mixers ...

 

[yuda]

Been craving some Talisker 10 for a while. It's basically liquid smoke and it is felicious

 

[tkcolo]

Peat seems like an acquired taste. I am not a fan. yet.

 

[molach95]

I do a lot of folklore and local history studying in my spare time and there was a very old woman about 120 years ago living on the other side of my county here in Scotland. She still lived in a "black house", a kind of stone cottage with no chimney and a central peat fire for heating and cooking. A writer used to visit her as a child with his friends and she would always give them some fruit cake she baked herself wrapped in foil. Unfortunately they always threw it out to the birds on the way home because it absolutely reeked of peat smoke. You couldn't live in a house like that, as many hundreds of thousands of Scots did (if not millions over time) and not have everything you owned, cooked or wore thoroughly smoked with "peat-reek" (peat smoke). People used to simply hang their salted meat and fish from the cottage rafters to cold smoke for winter preservation. The taste and smell of peat in everything was just a part of life in those days

 

[bluto]

I would imagine the peat smoke to be quite anticeptic . Smoked meats , dried and cured preserves the food , it also kills off listeria .

 

[iajaffe]

Y'all have to try Lagavulin 8. It's amazing. I love the really young Islays with that peat punch right in your face.

 

[viesturs]

Love the peat..my fav scotch is Highland Park it comes from the farthest north part of Scotland and is the furthest north distillery. It's really dark almost looks like a cola but is beautiful to drink.

 

[bluto]

Highland park , is around 20 percent peated malt
Probably ok for the warm up act

 

[headhunter]

As much peat as a distiller can get into their product.............Laphroig