An Cladach — 'the shore' in Gaelic — is another travel retail expression from Bunnahabhain, bottled at 50% and presented as a nod to the distillery's famously awkward coastal setting on the Sound of Islay. The road to Bunnahabhain ends at the warehouses, which sit almost in the water, and 'the shore' is no poetic flourish: it is where the distillery physically is.
The bottling is unpeated and carries no age statement. As with the rest of the modern range it is non-chill-filtered and natural colour, per the policy adopted under Ian MacMillan in 2010. The higher strength is the point of difference from the standard 12 and from Eirigh Na Greine — 50% gives the spirit more room to express its natural oiliness, and the coastal character which defines Bunnahabhain generally is sharper here than in the diluted versions.
It is not a complicated whisky and makes no claim to be. It is Bunnahabhain at slightly more than usual volume, in a bottle aimed at the airport dram-buyer who wants something identifiably Islay but unpeated. For those purposes it does its job honestly, and the 50% pouring strength is a welcome courtesy after years in which no-age-statement travel retail whiskies were routinely bottled at 40%.
