The labels of Bruichladdich‘s Octomore Series 18 have been revealed: four bottles due in 2027, two of them aged 14 and 15 years. For a range built on five years in cask that is a shift, and 18.3 goes back to the 309.1 ppm of the most heavily peated edition ever released.

The four bottles

18.1 comes at 59.8% from malt peated to 80 ppm, five years in ex-bourbon and re-charred bourbon casks. 18.2 starts from the same 80 ppm malt and the same 2021 barley, but spends five years in Languedoc and Bordeaux casks, and is bottled at 58.8%.

18.3 uses Islay barley grown in the Church Field at Octomore Farm, Oxbridge variety, with malt at 309.1 ppm: fifteen years across bourbon, Languedoc and European oak, 56.7%. 18.4 closes the set at 156 ppm, fourteen years across bourbon, American whiskey, Bordeaux and Romanian virgin oak, 56.2%.

All four carry Adam Hannett‘s signature and, as ever, come non chill filtered and with no colouring.

309.1 ppm, again

The figure on 18.3 is not new: it is the same as Octomore 08.3, released in 2017 at five years and 61.2%, from barley grown in the same field. The two share the 2011 distillation: same harvest, same malt, therefore the same value, which is measured on the malt, as we explain in our guide to ppm. The only difference is the age of the whisky.

For anyone following the range it is a rare chance: the same whisky at five and at fifteen years, with strength down from 61.2% to 56.7%.