Whisky Focus - Octomore Orpheus Scotch Single Malt of the Year

The world’s peatiest whisky is now voted the world’s best.

Whisky guru Jim Murray, having tasted over 4500 whiskies from around the world, awarded the 2011 victor ludorum to Octomore Orpheus in his definitive whisky guide, the Whisky Bible, published last week.

Octomore, winner of the title "Single Malt of the Year", is distilled at Islay’s Bruichladdich distillery, and is 3 times more peaty than any other mainstream whisky.

Winning 96.5%, Octomore Orpheus outperformed other category winners up to 10 times its age. Being only 5 years old, it also won the title of best whisky under 10 years.

"This is no monstrous brute," said Jim McEwan, head of distilling at Islay’s Bruichladdich Distillery, "it’s an iron fist in the velvet glove. That’s what you get when you combine massively smokey barley with the purest spirit around. It’s like nothing else on earth."

"It also shows what great quality barley, slow, artisanal distilling, and premium quality wood can achieve; it makes a mockery of that assumption that old must equal better."

Unusually, the award-winning whisky was matured in both standard American and premium French oak - the latter from the prestigious bordeaux winery of Chateau Petrus.
15,000 bottles were made of Octomore "Orpheus" from barley malted to 140 ppm and bottled at 61% ABV.

The latest award winning release, the Octomore Orpheus 3, is even peatier at an unprecedented 152 ppm and is available exclusively from whisky specialists shops such as The Whisky Exchange.
 

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