In France, the concept of “terroir” explains the character of wine, cheese, whisky, brandy etc by considering the place in which it’s made. The soil, climate, variety of barley, locality to the coast, location of warehouses, origin of cask, colour of the stillman’s underwear (!) all feasibly impart an effect on the flavour and overall character of a whisky.

Many distilleries, due to demand, have to import barley from abroad. This would compromise the terroir of the spirit, so Bruichladdich only use Scottish barley in all their whiskies. For this expression, they’ve gone one further and made it exclusively with barley grown on Islay. Specifically, at Rockside farm just up the hill where Kilchoman distill their whisky.

Nose: Farms, stable-smell of hay and straw, salty again, wet flowers.

Palate: Creamy. Salty porridge with apple. No citrus this time, but a touch of menthol and spicy nutmeg.

Finish: Hazelnuts and a little more salt.The barley in this was grown in 2006, distilled in 2007 and matured purely in bourbon casks until it was bottled at 50% ABV. Apparently, the Islay farmers were paid for their barley (at least partially) in whisky!Lovely dram this is – it’s so farmyardy, but not in a bad way at all. On the nose is stables, hay, horses, leather, mud etc and the palate’s creamy and cereal-rich. Yummy.