Bruichladdich’s Quadruple-Distilled Unicorn Arrives: Meet X4+18 Edition 01

Published November 18, 2025 by John Fegan

Bruichladdich, that happily eccentric Islay distillery that behaves as if the laws of economic feasibility and common sense are optional extras, has announced a new marvel: X4+18 Edition 01, proudly hailed as the world’s first 18-year-old quadruple-distilled single malt. Not the first quadruple-distilled whisky, mind you. They’ve already done that before. Several times. This is simply the one that’s been allowed to sit in a cask long enough to vote.

The tale begins in 2006, when Jim McEwan, MBE and resident alchemist, decided the normal two-distillation method used by polite Scotch-making society was all terribly mundane. Why stop at twice when you have enough copper, curiosity, and institutional optimism to go further? So he distilled the spirit a third time, then a fourth, presumably to see if the universe would blink. No one is entirely sure if someone stopped him trying a fifth time, or phsyics simply declined on the basis of self-preservation.

So far as researchers CERN can determine, the universe did not blink, but the spirit did come out at a frankly preposterous 85% ABV, which is the sort of strength at which whisky starts whispering to the cask, “Let’s see which one of us lasts longer.”

The spirit, which by this point had developed the kind of wide-eyed anxiety normally seen in passengers on malfunctioning spacecraft, was placed into Bourbon and Rivesaltes casks deep within the island warehouses. There it matured for 18 years under the watchful eye of master blender Adam Hannett. Hannett recently presented it in a private tasting with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for someone who’s been sitting on a secret so long it’s developed its own personality.

He explained the math of quadruple distillation as though describing a disappearing act: normally a week’s production yields roughly 200 casks. Quadruple distillation, however, uses volume as a polite suggestion and results in about 30 or 40 casks. “Drastically reduced” was the phrase used by the accountants before fainting.

The whole caper was inspired by an dusty old account of “usquebaugh-baul,” or “perilous whisky,” a 17th-century island spirit allegedly distilled four times by people who were likely less interested in making history and had simply reached that point in the evening when the count of distillations start wandering off on its own.

Bruichladdich revived this idea in the 2000s with earlier cult bottlings like X4+3 The Perilous Spirit and the various Octomore experiments. Those were the mischievous younger siblings, most of which were prevented from leaving by secruity at Islay airport. X4+18, however, is the one that went off to university and came back determined to show everyone what it’s learned.

Only 2,400 bottles of Edition 01 exist, each filled at 63.5% ABV and packaged in Bruichladdich’s handsome recycled-glass bottle adorned with a modern label whose abstract graphics politely pretend they can explain quadruple distillation.

As for tasting notes, the whisky is said to offer Wine Gums (the chewy ghosts of childhood), dried fruits, honey, Muscovado sugar, and a general sense that Christmas has arrived early and slightly tipsy. The texture is soft and rounded, the finish floral, nutty, and very pleased with itself.

Edition 02 will appear in 2027, presumably after everyone’s had time to recover from Edition 01, or the firt Islay Rye, whichever comes first. This inaugural release also sets the pace for Bruichladdich’s twenty fifth anniversary events in 2026, during which even stranger experiments will no doubt appear because sensible behaviour, or listening to reason, has never been part of their business plan.

X4+18 Edition 01 is now available for £225, for dispatch beginning 26 November. Supplies are limited, imagination is unlimited, and the whisky itself seems rather chuffed to have survived four distillations, 18 years, and the entire Bruichladdich team’s enthusiasm.