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Bruichladdich 18 – a North Star bottling that signals way ahead for whisky makers

Bruichladdich Distillery’s investment in Islay-grown barley draws a blueprint for provenance, process and packaging in modern whisky making

A NORTH STAR bottling is one that, by doing things differently, shows others the way. Bruichladdich 18 stands as a signpost for other whisky makers to follow and for fans to keep company on a journey to real sustainability and local provenance. 

When Bruichladdich distillery was revived back in 2001 the goal was to forge ever-deeper connections between the distillery and the land it stood on. The clearest route to that goal was with Islay barley, a project that kicked off soon after the relaunch of this edgy island whisky maker. Led then by Mark Reynier, it’s now in the hands of Remy Cointreau, and Islay barley is an established and well-tested homegrown crop. More than 20 years after it started, the whisky maker has partnerships with some 20 farmers on Islay today, growing barley, rye and other grains that are planting a solid footprint in the island’s road ahead. 

First Crop
Bruichladdich 18 is a flagbearer for a sustainable future, being the first whisky distilled using the island’s own barley. There’s other Scottish barley in this mash too but the Islay experiment in growing its own crop forms the heart of this elegant release. Matured in ex-bourbon, parcels of the distillate were matured in sauternes and port casks before all three were vatted and married together. It’s a wonderful 50% single malt.

Bruichladdich is the unpeated arm of the three-pronged whisky maker’s brand divisions (its siblings being the peated Port Charlotte and super-peated Octomore brands). 

It used the first distillate created with organic Islay barley to prove the case for Bruichladdich’s DIY approach, wrapping the island and its most famous industry in layers of ingredients that are wholly of the land. Giving it a long maturation of 18 years in oak, Bruichladdich copper-fastened the trust placed in a sustainable approach.

Packaging
And it’s not just the whisky: the bottle itself is wrapped in sustainability too. As whisky makers everywhere continue to shed the non-sustainable sleeves and boxes they  normally arrive in, the challenge has been to find another way to present a bottle in a modern and attractive way that is recyclable at reduced weight. 

Bruichladdich 18 solved this problem by using paper pulp that was dyed, cut and moulded without glue to create a sleeve that is 100% recyclable and lower in weight than any other option available to them. This makes it easier to transport and consequently affects the quantity of C02 used in transport too. Designed in collaboration with the James Cropper paper company, it was produced in its 180-year-old paper mill in the Lake District in England. From a design-perspective, it’s an ingenious approach that embodies a sense of elegance and prestige while protecting the bottle without adding excessive weight, plastics or size. 

With this benchmark in sustainable and homegrown whisky already in the hands of its consumers the challenge is laid for competitors to try and follow Bruichladdich’s lead. 

Click here to view more of our Islay bottlings