Laddie Legends: Octomore Orpheus and Comus

In the early 2000s peated whiskies were regarded as rugged, niche. It was the same kind of test as the hottest dish on the curry house menu.

Mark Reynier refers to a “self-inflicted arms race” - the desire to dial up the peatiness Bruichladdich could achieve after its success with Port Charlotte. When Octomore launched in 2008, it was “the peat monster to devour all peat monsters” according to scotchwhisky.com

Octomore’s tastiness seemingly surprised everyone, however. The barley’s phenol count – those smoky flavour compounds which adhere to the grain during malting and give Islay malts their characteristic flavour – was measured at double the Parts Per Million (PPM) of mainstream Islay whiskies. But we had tall, narrow-necked stills, and human-led, patient distillation which made the spirit fruity and elegant. Mark’s words, “It did show that the style, the weight of the whisky, was paramount and the peatiness was really something ‘on top’.”

The scotchwhisky.com whiskypedia entry goes on to say, “Octomore is not by any means a one-dimensional dram, with maritime, fruity, floral and vanilla notes finding their voices in the midst of all that macho smoke.”

By 2009, and Octomore’s third release, Orpheus 02.2, we were proving that ultra-peated whisky could also be luxurious and wine-driven, mercurial. Combinations of malting and maturation like this - in some of the rarest casks in Bordeaux - had never been tried before. Yes, it was smokier than anything, ever, at 140ppm. (Mark tells us he would have gone for the world record if there had been such a category!) But there was nuance there too; softness, depth, complexity, perfume, balance, poignancy.

No mainstream press response survives but the community raved about it. “This one still has all the beautiful clefts and peaks of its brethren. Enormous, deep…and surprisingly sophisticated.” It won the Whisky Exchange’s Whisky Bible awards 2011: Single Malt Whisky of the year (multiple casks) with 96/100 points, despite the prospect that the dichotomy it presented might be something like “The New York Dolls play Schoenberg” - Serge Valentin's analogy.

This is not the place for the full “Orpheus” myth (try Opera North). Suffice to say that the story of love and mortality inspired everyone, from Rubens to Rodin to Rilke, from Monteverdi to Nick Cave, before it inspired us.

Wir gene um it Blume, Weinblatt, Frucht,
Sie sprechen nicht die Sprache nur des Jahres.
Aus Dunkel steigt ein buntes Offenbares

We pass our lives among flowers, vines, and fruit:
They speak more than the language of the year.
Out of the darkness rises something bright and manifest…

Rainer Maria Rilke Sonnets to Orpheus Part One IV 1922, translated by Stephen Cohn (pub. Carcanet 2000).

The myth of Comus is less well known. Milton covered it in a big old poem in the 17th century, which William Blake illustrated in the 19th century, Arthur Rackham in the 20th. He was the god of festivities, Dionysus’ cup bearer, a seducer, sometimes drawn as a satyr, sometimes as an ambiguous youth.

Comus, aka Octomore 4.2, took the elegance and layering of flavour seen in the 2.2 even further, with its heritage from an elite Sauternes appellation. Ruben at Whiskynotes puts it as “a nice marriage of seemingly contradictory elements. The best Octomore I’ve tried so far.”

Perhaps these whiskies, given mythological names at their conception, were destined to go down in history? The ambition was certainly to distinguish these bottles from the .1s, from each other, and from the rest of the peated whisky category. Mark says he was trying, “to ascribe a certain mystery - both a danger, redemption, and decadence. The underworld and bacchanalia.”

Again, these bottles had the packaging genius of early Bruichladdich. Again, exceptional casks. Orpheus was given a red outer tin, to show off its impeccable Pomerol (Bordeaux) credentials. 2012’s Comus (the sixth Octomore edition) was given a frosted glass bottle and a white tube - perhaps even evoking a little femininity. We had previous form for arresting design 180• switches of course, with PC5 / PC6.

Among both the crowd that knew they loved peat, and the crowd that didn’t know they loved peat, these first two unorthodox “point 2s” were a phenomenon. Here was the most elemental of drams, created through extended contact with burning earth, made texturally supple and sensuous through distillation, exuding some of the most decadent, aromatic fruits and spices that European oak could muster. After Orpheus and Comus had proven that one-off experiments like these led to compelling and exquisite whisky, exotically-matured, super-heavily peated whiskies became part of every annual series since 2013. Our Octomore .2 whiskies continue to defy preconceptions about what an Islay single malt whisky can be.

Besides lusting after the legendary bottles in this series, what’s the point of revisiting them? Viewed from some distance, we might see how these bottles contributed to an entire shift in the culture around whisky. Whisky could be creative, it could be punk, it could be more honest about its provenance yet more exotic and multi-dimensional than ever before, and there was a growing community of fans who were ready for that.

In 2006, The Times newspaper’s Scotland Correspondent David Lister had commented, “Bruichladdich has a reputation among Scottish distilleries for being one of the more eccentric and outspoken…” We can probably own being those things, at the time, we certainly weren’t shy about what we were up to. But the remark underplays the importance of the frictions we were creating through being vocal about what we stood for: pre-judging on age statements is reductive, peat has potential for nuance, transparency is what consumers deserve, experimentation is valuable, whisky making has to be connected to the agriculture in its supply chain. Are the arguments on these fronts even yet fully won?

Ten years on from the David Lister article comes this quote, from the legend that was Carl Reavey, in an article in Whisky Magazine titled The Maverick Distillery:

”Bruichladdich’s success had been built on a set of principles, principles that we consider inviolable… We believe this stuff - it is our DNA. These are not marketing gimmicks to be wheeled out piecemeal to bolster individual expressions as some corporate brand office demands.”

Now, we’re ten years further on again, 2026, and the legendary bottles continue to come - thrilling Octomores, a third Yellow Sub, PC5 Redux, an entire “Projects Series” of innovation… Whether you’re a horizon focussed trend-watcher, or a nostalgic history-lover, or someone with an appetite for authentic, quality whiskies suffused with imagination, you might want to stick around to see what the next 10 years will hold.