I think the best value is Ardbeg ($90 700ml). The strongest peat is Octomore; the record was eclipsed by Octomore 8.3, which had 309 ppm phenol. Now 12.1, 12.2 and 12.3.
https://embed.notionlytics.com/wt/ZXlKd1lXZGxTV1FpT2lJNE1tSXlZVGcyTVRnM01UQTBZbVJsWWpBMFkyRmpOVGRqTURFME9HSTBOaUlzSW5kdmNtdHpjR0ZqWlZSeVlXTnJaWEpKWkNJNklsaHlaMGhqYTFVek9VNXRla3AxUjNSMVFscFlJbjA9
This appears to be an issue that manufacturers, particularly Lark, want to avoid. In the 80's, Lark had tours of its peat bog mine at Brown's Marsh. Now it is very hard to find anything about it. The peatiest malts from Lark are still only slightly peated. I tried the $750 one (???) - it was just ok to me. They are not “salty” malts like Islay.
I'm guessing the reason is that peat bogs are rare and fragile, and some conservation groups are opposed to mining them.
The peated malts of Tassy are Lark (using midlands Tassy peat), Hellier's Road (using Scottish peated malt), and the small scale Belgrove Rye (using Lark's peat!).
I found two more small scale, expensive peats at Bruny Island’s premium whisky bar, that use Scottish malt or NZ malt!
Belgrove: “Peat for smoking is sourced from his brother’s farm. “Though sometimes I use sheep dung,” Bignell says, picking a piece from the ground and lighting it to demonstrate. “While peat can take hundreds of years to form in a highly acidic, low-oxygen environment, dung gets that in a sheep’s stomach, but it only takes a couple of days.”
"Bruichladdich have an abundance of peat and peated malt at their fingertips on Islay, and yet they source peated malt from Bairds in Inverness on the mainland, around 300 kilometres away (Hellyers and Black Gate, reviewed below, also use Bairds). If Bruichladdich’s Octomore, one of the world’s most revered peated malts, doesn’t taste of its immediate surrounds, should Australian distillers be concerned with infusing local flavours into their whiskies?"
*http://peatedperfection.blogspot.com/2016/11/tasmanian-whisky-adventure-chapter-2-pt_31.html*
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AjUyWl-qz0&t=33s*
*https://www.geodata.us/australia_names_maps/aumaps.php?fid=233120&f=232&name=Brown Marsh*
*https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-01-07/rural-tas-lark-bog-conservation-0201/5156160*
*https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/his-own-bog-for-peats-sake-20090929-ge84b3.html*
*https://whiskywaffle.com/tag/peat-bog/*
*https://www.goodfood.com.au/archived/exploring-our-people-places-and-produce-lark-distillery-20140616-3a71i*
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/may/22/peppered-with-personalities-touring-tasmanias-world-class-whisky-distilleries