Na Bràithrean Caol Ila
Brother Casks Inaugural Release 2019 | 58% / 60.2% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
Tasty whisky, but very little to tell the siblings apart
A sound concept but does it work in reality?
I’m active on Instahoot because I love taking and sharing photographs of whisky. I’m also guilty of the whisky version of doomscrolling which I’ll call dramscrolling.
Doomscrolling is what kids call the act of obsessively scrolling down a page, addicted to absorbing any and all forms of negative content, whether it be news or views, videos or pictures. The latter is what Dougie calls someone obsessively scrolling down Instahoot, addicted to absorbing any and all forms of whisky content. Sometimes a ‘like’ button is hit, sometimes a message is typed, but most of all it’s just an endless scrolling waterfall of amber pixels.
I stumbled upon Na Bràithrean this way, stopping briefly to admire their tall, blocky bottle and beautifully rendered cellular graphics on the labels. White and black, one and the same? At first I didn’t really understand - at first I assumed it was like the James Eadie labelling system, where a black label is the single cask, cask strength stuff, and a white label is the small batch, multiple casked 46% bottles. The Na Bràithrean take on monotone labelling is not that - it’s something altogether far more interesting and once you understand what the team behind Na Bràithrean are trying to do, there’s many behavioural paths you can choose to go down depending on your outlook in life. But before all that, an explanation.
“There’s something endearing about the concept of two brothers growing older together, protected by their mum until they’re of an age to be responsible enough to chart their own path”
The idea behind Na Bràithrean is that a cask, a hogshead or barrel, is used to mature a mother spirit - for however long that takes. At a time in the maturation, the mother cask contents are withdrawn and split evenly into two different new casks - brother casks of completely different origin, type and previous inhabitant.
These two smaller casks mature for a while longer and, when ready, one of the casks - I assume the one showing the most promise first - is bottled. This becomes the “Wee Brother” and gets a white label. The other cask remains maturing until it’s ready. It’s bottled and is issued a black label: the “Big Brother”. Na Bràithrean means “The Brothers” in Scottish Gaelic.
I’m sold immediately. I’m on board. There’s something romantic, sentimental, endearing even, about the concept of two brothers growing older together, safely protected by their mum until they’re of an age to be responsible enough to chart their own path. After a bit of time they come back together, now fully formed, rendered forevermore in tall glass, letterpress labels and sporting an etched wooden hat. It’s a pleasant vision and, it could be argued, a marketer's dream. The company was started by two real-life brothers in 2019, after losing themselves to the charms of whisky and the realisation that the cask within which a whisky matures could influence the spirit dramatically. A year later and the first of the Na Bràithrean bottles appeared in the form of an 8 year old Caol Ila, distilled in April 2011 and bottled in January 2020. Remember that month? Before the world and all of everything went to bits? No, me neither - the new normal has become… normal. This first release from the company was given a white label, the Wee Brother, and it was finished in a refill bourbon hogshead. For how long, we don’t know - their website in 2022 doesn’t allow a click-through to these particular bottles. I asked for help to learn more, but none was received. Only 103 bottles of this youthful Islay upstart were produced, and delivered at a lip searing 60.2% ABV.
A mere five months later - long enough to tick over into the next birthday of nine years - the other part of the Caol Ila mother spirit was bottled, this half finished in a PX sherry cask - of how long it was finished, we again don’t know. Maybe the cask was a bit more airtight or they found a funnel to get it into the PX cask instead of handballing it, but 67 more bottles of the black labelled Big Brother were produced; 170 in total presented at a not insignificant 58% ABV. Standing the bottles side-by-side, the colours are both beautiful and indicative - the 8yo nipper is the colour of golden straw; bright and happy, innocent. The 9yo bully boy is darker, richer and strangely alluring. Will the flavour follow?
Now - here’s where things can diverge, depending on your outlook. The concept, for me, is really cool: a singular spirit taken to a point before splitting into two different casks, to see what the legitimate cask influence is on that foundation whisky. I like the question they’re asking - what happens if you take matured whisky and send half this way and half that way with the ability to explore the resulting differences in each. It can also be seen in a few other ways, such as managing risk - taking a spirit and decanting it into two different cask finishes is a good way to spread the risk. Some people like sherried whiskies and some don’t. Some like the colour of dark whiskies, some don’t care. It’s a unique way to try and capture the multitude of whisky market segments by taking a cask, splitting it down the middle and, through different finishing phases, cater for different interests. For new independent bottlers with so much risk to manage, it might be a safer way to get up and running.
However if you’re cynical, and who isn’t these days, it could be seen as a way to profiteer. By releasing two “brother” whiskies and making a big stink about keeping it in the family, you might be tempted, or maybe even feel it necessary to buy both brothers, if only to fully experience the Na Bràithrean experiment. It’s probably not going to be a make-or-break decision for the majority of people buying this sort of whisky, and a lot of people I’d assume would choose which side they want to explore. But couple that brotherly package to a very low outturn and you have yourself a very potent case of FOMO happening. Another view is even more cynical than that; if you’re interested only in collecting glass vessels filled with orange liquid for hopes of selling it all one day and buying a super yacht berthed in St. Tropez, whittling your remaining days away drinking negronis on deck while getting burned by the searing Mediterranean sun and shat on by the seagulls… it’s very much likely a must-buy double deal.
Luckily for auld Doog, with my new pals - who by the way are among some of the most generous people I’ve ever met - I didn’t have to worry about any of that. Two generously filled Na Bràithrean Caol Ila bottles made their way to Crystal Towers and now I have the remaining contents of both brothers to explore without any of the FOMO, investment planning or auction chasing to worry about. It’s all about the liquid inside these bottles for me, without any external influence… apart from the pressure of knowing who the previous owner of these bottles is. Ultimately I just want to enjoy exploring the smell and taste experience from this experimental approach.
Review
Na Bràithrean Inaugural Release, 2019, 58% ABV & 60.2% ABV
Sold Out - Wee £75 | Big £85
The task of reviewing, and revealing, the differences in these particular whiskies is a bit of a challenge. Bold peated whisky like Caol Ila is an exercise in persistence. It takes me quite a lot of time to get through the smoke screen and see what’s behind it. I’ve poured these two whiskies side-by-side four times now, and each flyby has the same approach - a decent amount of time in the glass followed by a very lengthy process of working out what’s going on inside each, then seeing what differences I can ascertain, if any, between the two and remembering to write it all down.
Caol Ila 8yo White Label “Wee Brother” - Refill Bourbon Hogshead 60.2%
Nose
Juicy with creamy smoke. Marshmallows toasting and a hint of fresh Play-Doh.
Palate
Sweet smoke and creaminess, very rounded and mouth filling. Perfectly toasted marshmallows - not too burnt, but still melty nom nom.
Caol Ila 9yo Black Label “Big Brother” - PX Sherry Finish 58%
Nose
Fruity smoke and a bit of sharpness - tart. There’s some sweetness and a whiff of chip shops in the wind - vinegar and fresh air mingle. Sweet marshmallows toasting on the beach until they’re ablaze and pose the very real risk of fusing permanently to the roof of your mouth.
Palate
Sweet smoke and bacon crisps. Very clear charcoal bursts - sharp, cremated and woody; burning bonfire sticks. Sour fruits morphing into sour sweet sugar. Burnt toast. Marshmallow’s forgotten about, and subsequently blackened, over the campfire.
The Dregs
I wanted there to be more contrast here - the concept of having the brother casks and different finishes made me think that one would be clearly different from the other. However there’s very little to differentiate the two. Both exhibit the bold smoke and sweetness. Both have marshmallow bursts, albeit with two different approaches to toasting them. Where the younger spirit is very rounded and uniformly delicious, the older adds a layer of soured wood on top - a bit burnt and a bit ashy. That’s not to say that it’s not as delicious, because both brothers are really tasty whiskies, but the take away for me is that there’s not enough to split them. The brothers left mother’s home with the intent to forge different paths, but instead ended up working in the same kitchen. The young one was the artisanal chef, taking big pains to get that dish seasoned just right. The older brother couldn’t get the hob to work and served everyone burnt chips. The management fired the wrong brother because after the white and black tunics were removed, they looked identical.
If I’m honest, I feel a bit let down by this experience, mainly because I thought it would be an illuminating process; taking two whiskies and finishing them differently alluded to finding clear, maybe even surprising, differences. I expected it to be night and day, but found them an hour apart. There’s not enough - of either maturation time or cask influence - to make the brothers stand out from each other. But then, why would they? This is eight and nine year old whisky, and of those eight and nine years they’ve spent maturing, they’ve done it mostly inside the same cask. Only at the tail end (I assume) have they been exposed to a new cask environment. It’s logical they would be similar with only subtle differences. And that’s exactly what this is - if you were to lay these down before me in a blind tasting, I think I’d struggle to tell them apart - one might exhibit a little more sharpness, but it takes a good effort for me to find it.
So what to make of it then? I think if I’d bought both of these, with an aim to explore the potential influences of casks on whisky, I’d be a bit miffed that I’d spent £160 on two whiskies as near as dammit identical. If they were each knockout, sensational drams then I’d forgive, but despite being enjoyable, the uniformity and the lack of real contrast between the two brothers means that it’s a double 6/10 experience. I’m interested to know if their follow-on releases, by my count six brother whiskies (12 bottles in total), feature similar brotherly dynamics, or if they are legitimate contrasting experiences. However I’m not willing to pay, in the case of the Ledaig 12yo set, close to £200 knowing now the inherent risk of ending up with the same whisky, albeit with subtle tone shifts. I really do like the concept, and the act of finishing identical whiskies in separate barrels could prove to be a worthwhile pursuit if it changes the foundation spirit drastically. But in this Caol Ila example it’s just not drastic enough.
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
-
Dramface is free.
Its fierce independence and community-focused content is funded by that same community. We don’t do ads, sponsorships or paid-for content. If you like what we do you can support us by becoming a Dramface member for the price of a magazine.
However, if you’ve found a particular article valuable, you also have the option to make a direct donation to the writer, here: buy me a dram - you’d make their day. Thank you.
For more on Dramface and our funding read our about page here.
Other opinions on this:
Got a link to a reliable review? Tell us.
