Octomore 4.2 Comus puts a honeyed glory on the blaze and the ashes.

Château d'Yquem is the highest end Sauternes, the only Premier Cru Supérieur. If you like the rich sweet yellow dessert wine Sauternes, you'll want to have it at least once in your life. It is famous for balancing sweetness and acidity with a big tropical fruit and floral nature. In the wine finish craze that has gripped the Scotch whisky world (and, beginning, the bourbon world too now) it was inevitable that Sauternes casks would be used. Probably the most famous such expression is Glenmorangie's excellent Nectar D'Or which amps up Glenmorangie's honeyed floral nature with the honeyed floral nature of Sauternes to produce the laciest most floral expression of Scotch whisky around. Whiskies finished in the casks from the regal and expensive Château d'Yquem are harder to find. A notable example is the kilobuck crystal decanter top of the line Glenmorangie Pride which I had the opportunity to taste at a Glenmorangie flight in 2010 at Keen's hosted by Paul Pacult and Bill Lumsden. Pride is intensely honeyed and regally floral with tons of figs and dates and honeysuckle flower. Pride is composed mostly of 18 year old Glenmorangie which then rested in Château d'Yquem casks for a full 10 additional years. Glenmorangie is a natural to pair with this delicate wine influence because its high stills, the highest stills in Scotland, emphasize the delicate and floral esters which whisky can possess.

Today I'll be tasting the latest expression of Octomore from Bruichladdich: 4.2 Comus. The name comes from Greek mythology. The "dot two" designation, so far, indicates a wine secondary finish. The previous wine finished Octomore was 2.2 "Orpheus" - sporting a Château Petrus finish. It was universally lauded as a big step forward for the Octomore flavor profile. The reception for the Comus expression has been more tepid, perhaps not surprisingly. It's an odd pairing - Octomore, the highest peated whisky in the world - and the sweet and floral wine influence of Château d'Yquem. Peat is a powerful and assertive flavor. It might be expected to stomp all over the more delicate d'Yquem. However, experience has taught me that Octomore has a dual nature born of Bruichladdich's extremely tall stills, the highest stills in Islay: a beautiful light sweetness up front - married to the big and assertive peat that shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, at mid-palate. So, maybe it's not so crazy after all. Bruichladdich plays this aspect of the pairing up with the white tube and the story about Comus.  Here it is from Bruichladdich's web site:

FOLLOWING ON FROM THE NOW LEGENDARY OCTOMORE ORPHEUS, THE NOW LEGENDARY JIM MCEWAN HAS CREATED ANOTHER LANDMARK OCTOMORE. COMUS WAS THE SON OF BACHHUS [GOD OF WINE AND REVELLING] AND CIRCE, DAUGHTER OF HELIOS THE SUN GOD AND A SORCERESS WHO WOULD BEGUILE THE INNOCENT INTO DRINKING HER MAGIC POTIONS.

"COMUS" WAS A PLAY WRITTEN BY POET JOHN MILTON AND FIRST PERFORMED IN 1634 AT LUDLOW CASTLE, ENGLAND. THE WORK PRESENTS THE DESPERATE BATTLE BY COMUS TO ENSNARE A BEAUTIFUL, INNOCENT GIRL AND THROUGH THE HEDONISTIC POWER OF HIS MAGIC POTIONS ­ - "HIS ORIENT POTIONS IN A CRYSTAL GLASS" - ­ ROB HER OF HER VIRGINITY. A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE ON THE BATTLE BETWEEN SENSUAL PLEASURE AND PHYSICAL ABANDON, AND REASON AND VIRTUE.
ALL VERY BRUICHLADDICH.

IN THIS OCTOMORE 4.2 "COMUS" WE SEE THIS SAME DUALITY ­ THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN THE BROODING POWER OF THE EXCEPTIONAL OCTOMORE PEAT AND THE SUBLIME ELEGANCE OF CASKS THAT PREVIOUSLY HELD THE WORLD¹S GREATEST SWEET WINE.

HENCE THE WHITE, VIRGINAL, INNOCENT PACKAGING - ­ BUT LIKE OUR HEROINE, DO NOT BE DECEIVED... ALL IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.

http://www.bruichladdich.com/the-whisky/peated-whisky/octomore/octomore-4-2-comus-167ppm 

Octomore 4.2 Comus is a lovely light gold color.

Octomore 4.2 Comus 61% abv 167 ppm

Non chill filtered.  No artificial colors.  3cl samples from http://whiskysamples.flyingcart.com/

Color: pale gold - a slightly richer color than the light straw of the non-wine finished Octomores.

Nose: the putty and library paste notes of big peat come first. Then the maritime salt spray notes share time with an odd vegetal note which initially had a lemon pith quality but, with more nosing, began to seem more like dry hay. There is also a little meat broth aroma behind everything a a slight mineral note like chalk. This is, frankly, an odd complex of flavor notes. Adding a drop of water amps up the putty and broth and hay at the expense of the sea spray and mineral.  I think the admixture of powerful peat aroma, sweet, and broth savory is the origin of some reviewer's sense of "rotting plant matter" - (see the April 11 post of Sku's Recent Eats).  I don't get that sense - but I do acknowledge that some of these aromas are at odds with each other.  Frankly, it hardly matters; once you start sipping something bigger trumps them all...

Entry is sweet and honeyed with a much richer mouth feel than other Octomores in my experience. The flavor signature of Sauternes is immediately apparent as a softening and richening overlay on top of the usual razor sharp sugars of Octomore's opening. This opening is lush, but with a drop of water the sugars explode and the whole fore palate becomes much more richly honeyed yet: viscous, and rich with a Sauternes like sweetness.   (The enhancement wrought by the addition of a few drops of water (only) is so profound that I consider it mandatory for this dram.)  At mid-palate where the floral aspect of d'Yquem emerges, however, the smoldering peat attack owns everything and overshadows the Yquem flavors. As in all the other Octomores the peat builds huge and smoldering in the mid-palate and turns to ash in the finish; a huge dominating flavor aspect.  This is the "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" aspect of Octomores:  the ethereal sweetness up front which gives way to a dramatic mid-palate expansion dominated by a huge wall of peat reek.  Somehow this transition, which thrilled and delighted me in other Octomore expressions, induced some regret in me here.  The Yquem glory up front is eclipsed by the massive peat attack and doesn't show up again until the palate progresses through fiery peat, road tar, and then the long finish of smoldering ash and then lingering herbal notes and a wistful final post echo of sweetness and then finally the decks are cleared for the next sip.  Is this new regret a shortcoming of this dram, or is it a testament to the beauty wrought by the lovely Yquem Sauternes finish; a beauty so lovely that I cannot bear to see it so roughly treated by the peat monster's massive shaggy bulk?  I don't know - but I pondered this with a knit brow.

The Sauternes finish has softened the "usual" Octomore initial razor sharp sugar opening and tempered and thickened it. The rich d'Yquem flavor profile luxuriates the intense sugar sting and makes it softer.  That's the bottom line here.  This is a softer, more plush and luxurious Octomore.  I don't know if I prefer it to the un-wine-finished style I've tried in the 1.1, 2.1 and 4.1 expressions.  It's different and new.  If you found the initial intense razor sharp sugar attack of these other Octomore expressions too intense, this 4.2 Comus expression will be a revelation.  Personally I'm inclined to find it an incremental improvement.  Something is most definitely gained, but something is lost too.  Softer and richer isn't unambiguously better in my opinion.  However, Octomore remains the most intense flavor profiles I've experienced and 4.2 Comus doesn't disappoint in this regard.  4.2 Comus goes new places and stretches to new extremes.  I remain quite bewitched by the whole crazy series.

*****