There were two main reasons why Ardbeg were down in London – 1) TWE has just become an Ardbeg Embassy, which mainly means we’ve got a bunch of bottles open for anyone who pops by, and 2) June 1st, the day after the tasting, was the release date of the latest Ardbeg Committee bottling: The Alligator. The Ardbeg Committee is the distillery’s fan club, founded in 1999 with a mission to “promote the advancement of general knowledge and enjoyment of Ardbeg”. They have very much tapped into the distillery’s fanbase, producing a dedicated group who will travel around the world to get to events (our furthest visitor at the tasting had come from Washington DC) and rewarding them with exclusive bottlings before products are unleashed on the public.

Ardbeg itself isn’t a young distillery, with a founding date of 1815 meaning that its bicentenary is only 4 years away. There are records of distilling on the site, although in a slightly less legal fashion , since 1794, but the distillery legally came into being under the management of the MacDougall family 11 years later. Things continued on fairly quietly until the 1970s, when the first commercial single malt whisky bottlings under the distillery’s name appeared – prior to that release there was only one hogshead of whisky going to single malt a year, and that went to the owners. In 1977 it was acquired by Hiram Walker (who became Allied Distillers) and shortly after things started going a bit wrong.

They closed in 1981 and again in June 1996 (after limited production mainly for the Ballantines blends had restarted under Allied Distillers in 1989). It was then acquired by Glenmorangie PLC and reopened in June 1997, ramping up to full volumes by 1998. This means that there is bit of a stock shortage between 1981 and 1996 (as there wasn’t a lot of whisky produced in the 90s which stayed at the distillery) which led to the initial Glenmorangie owned releases being rather special – 1970s vintages which became quite legendary. As the stock gap was filled they produced a number of expressions to show the development of the 1998 vintage whisky, running from the Very Young at 6 years old, through Still Young and Almost There before releasing the new 10 year old  in 2008. Since then they’ve mined the stocks from before the Glenmorangie takeover and continued to produce their own whisky to create a fairly solid range of (mainly) big peat monsters – having the reputation of being the distillery with the highest peat levels doesn’t hurt in today’s peat freak marketplace. LVMH, the current owners of both Ardbeg and Glenmorangie, seem to give the distilleries a good chunk of independence as well as investment – currently most of Ardbeg’s maturation takes place on the island, but not all, and new warehouses are being built to help rectify the situation (even if there is disagreement over whether maturing on Islay really affects the spirit’s flavour in the ways many often claim it does…).

The tasting was led by Mickey Heads, distillery manager and embassy ‘Chief of Mission’, and he was accompanied by a pair of Ardbeg Land Girls, part of the company’s latest effort to show that whisky isn’t only for men of a certain age who like women in cut-off dungarees (SARCHASM). Mickey is a local lad and became Ardbeg manager in 2007, but has a bit of history in the industry, starting at Laphroaig in 1979. From there he moved to Jura, where he stayed 8 years before coming to Ardbeg. Anyways, enough history – on to the booze, all made up of spirit distilled since 1997:

First on the tasting mat was the core of the range – Ardbeg 10 year old. It’s the main focus of the distillery and very much a statement of intent. Ardbeg is one of the peatiest whiskies on Islay, home of the peaty whisky, and the 10 year old is at 55ppm when it leaves the still, which mellows to a ‘mere’ 25 ppm by the time it gets to the glass – a big peaty punch. On the nose it’s big, sweet and smoky, with fruity peat, citrus, a little bit of chocolate, cream, barley, stone and brine. To taste it’s salty with sour limes and coal smoke leading to a finish of prickly pepper, sour fruit and chocolate limes. A drop of water softens some of the prickle in the finish and brings out the creaminess from the nose.

Next up was Uigeadail, ‘That Mysterious Place’ in gaelic, named for one of the two lochs that supply water to the distillery – the other is Airigh Nam Beist, which also had an expression named after it (nicknamed The Beast), although it is sadly gone. This was released in 2003 and is currently made up of whisky around the 12 year old mark with a little bit of older whisky (an increasingly small amount as time has gone by and the Ardbeg stocks have filled in). It’s a 50/50 vatting of whisky matured in oloroso sherry and bourbon casks, and from the flavour I suspect that there’s a good chunk of first fill bourbon in the mix. The nose has vanilla essence and caramel up front, with green veg, raisins, treacle, black bread and coal smoke coming in behind. To taste at first a wave of rubber rolls across the palate, leaving buttery edges on the side of the tongue, followed by coal dust and smoke, lime cordial and liquid smoke. The finish is long, with charcoal, raisins and a hint of lime accompanied by a prickle of alcohol. Water adds a sponge cakiness to the nose and rich caramel to the flavour.

That was followed by Corryvreckan (‘Cauldron of the Speckled Sea’), the replacement for The Beast, named after whirlpool that sits in the gulf of the same name,separating the islands of Jura and Scarba close to Islay. It’s a mix of first and refill bourbon casks, and whisky matured in (very expensive) new French oak. On the nose it has lime and brine, vanilla, fresh sea air, flowers, light fruit and malt loaf. To taste it is malty and sweet, with smoked cheese and ham, pepper, dark stick cherry, tobacco, coffee and coal stoves. The finish isn’t as long as the Uigeadail, but has more bitterness, with coffee and fruity dark chocolate. Water brings out a sweet butteriness to the taste and a whiff of smoke to the nose.

Next was the Supernova 2010 Release, Ardbeg’s second release by the name and their entry in the Islay peating war with Bruichladdich. The latter produced Octomore, at 100+ppm, and Ardbeg produced their Supernovas, with similar levels of peat. The whisky was all matured in bourbon casks, again with a big chunk of first fill if my palate isn’t fooling me. The nose had a fake butter and vanilla smell (diacetyl and vanilla essence) to start with, but that faded quickly in the glass (or my nose got used to it) to reveal lime cream, pepper, vegetal peat, green pepper, molasses and burned honeycomb toffee. To taste it started with big buttery peat, with smoked fish and hints of green vegetables (broccoli and asparagus?) to follow. The finish had smoked butter and perfumed wood, and hung around for a respectable amount of time. It’s really big and smoky, and it’s hard to express that without saying ‘and smoke’ after every flavour…

The last production sampler of the night was the one that we had all been waiting for – The Alligator. Officially released the next day, this is the first committee bottling that I’ve been actively aware of (only having become a fan of Ardbeg and member of the committe since around the time of the Supernova 2010 release) and there’s been talk about it for the last couple of months as details have been very carefully leaked. It comes from a mix of first fill bourbon casks and new oak ‘Alligator casks’. The latter are so called, giving the whisky its name, due to the Level 4 charring they receive during coopering – this is the highest level of char regularly used and is nicknamed ‘Alligator char’ due to the resemblance between the wood after firing and Alligator skin. This extra firing should give a bit more filtering of the spirit, as it passes back and forth through the charcoal layer as it soaks into the wood during maturation, as well as more intense flavours, although it does also increase evaporation from the cask. This initial release is of ‘only’ 10k bottles, with a 40k general release promised in September. I tried to log on to the Ardbeg website on the first day of sale only to find it snowed under with orders, slow and occasionally crashy. I advised people who asked to leave it for a few days, as I didn’t think the 10k bottles would sell out all that quickly, although I will admit that I sat there refreshing the page regularly to try and make sure I got my bottles. On checking while writing up this post it seems that it is now sold out, which is quite impressive. On the nose it had vanilla ice crea, hints of citrus, charred pineapple, cherries, pine, chalky sweets and an alarmingly light smokiness. To taste it had buttery vanilla, chocolate limes (it’s a flavour that I’m coming to increasingly associate with Ardbeg), orange peel and a savoury middle – butter sauce and green veg. The finish continued the veggie motif, with tannic wood and veg slowly turning sweet before fading. Water added more spice, with a bit of fruitcake appearing, as well as some more delicate floral notes.

With those five out of the way we came to the unmarked outliers on the tasting mat, which we learned were cask samples drawn by Mickey a few days before and billed as ‘Something interesting from the warehouse’. First of the pair was cask #2732 – a 1998 refill oloroso cask at 55.7%. On the nose it had similar fake butter and vanilla to the Supernova. Along with that there was smoke, sweetness and maltiness that my slightly wobbly notes list as like ‘a smoked ham and golden syrup sandwich’, as well as some lime and raisins. To taste there was a chunk of pot pourri/air freshener at the back of the palate, with the rest dominated by a sweet and savoury mix, with syrup, smoked cheese rind and leather. The finish had smoked cheese, pot pourri and a lingering coal fire.

The second sample was from cask #2117 – a 1999 first fill bourbon at 56%. On the nose this had a biiig vanilla cream note (written deliberately with multiple ‘i’s in my notes), which combined with some biscuity notes to give me Custard Creams, whipped cream, caraway seeds, nuts, spices and peat smoke. To taste it was strange, with milk chocolate and smoked cheese, blackberries, kippers and a hint of briny seaside air.

The Land Girls then made their way through the assembled throng with buckets of what they described as edible peat and instructions – dip the supplied stick into a jar of manuka honey, poke the stick into the bucket of peat, stick the whole lot in your mouth and follow it up with a dram of the 10 year old. The ‘peat’ was revealed to be a mix of flour, sugar and crushed hazelnuts bound together with some Fuller’s London Porter and and stirred until dry and earthlike. It worked quite well with the 10 year old, matching the whisky’s sweet citrus smokiness with the dry and nutty pretend mud.

Unfortunately for me the evening didn’t end there, with nearby pubs leading to an encounter with a night bus, a nostalgic kebab from the shop formerly known as The Kebab Machine and a walk along a deserted Holland Park Road looking for a bus or cab to get me closer to home. However, I do now have a bottle of Alligator in the post for me as well as five others ordered by people from mainland Europe, hit by LVMH being unable to send bottles to Europeans locations and now using me as a stopping off point and remailing service. Let’s hope that they all arrive intact…

Ardbeg 10 year old
Islay single malt Scotch whisky, 46%. ~£35

Ardbeg Uigeadail
Islay single malt Scotch whisky, 54.2%. ~£50

Ardbeg Corryvreckan
Islay single malt Scotch whisky, 57.1%. ~£60

Ardbeg Supernova 2010 release
Islay single malt Scotch whisky, 60.1%. ~£85

Ardbeg Alligator
Islay single malt Scotch whisky, 51.2%. Was ~£55, now sold out until September 1st’s general release.

As an employee of TWE I not only managed to get a ticket without going through the raffle, I also got in for free. Regular ticket price was £25. I did have to edit Toby’s post though, and buy a round in the pub afterwards…

Ardbeg’s had a spotty recent history but started officially started out in 1815, distilling on Ardbeg farm on the south coast of Islay. They produced whisky right through until the start of the 80s, when production started to slow until the distillery was mothballed in 1981. Allied Distillers, owners at the time, also owned Laphroaig and felt they had enough ongoing production from there, along with stored whisky from Ardbeg to meet their needs. It started producing small amounts of spirit again in 1989 but closed its doors seemingly finally in 1996, after several years of uncertainty. Allied put the distillery on the market, to great interest, with Glenmorangie buying it and reopening production in 1997. In 2004 Glenmorangie was acquired by the LVMH group (Moet Hennesy – Louis Vuitton) and Ardbeg went along as part of the package, giving it a big corporate backing. Glenmorangie and Ardbeg are generally left alone by the group, although they do get the backing money needed to push their increasingly well known brands. In addition they pool their technical resources, with Glenmorangie’s Bill Lumsden also acting as Ardbeg’s master distiller.

The whisky’s style is quite simple – very peaty. Using malt peated to 50ppm they are one of the peatier on the island and they relish in this distinction, pushing themselves as a peat lover’s dram.

Along with the reopening of the distillery Ardbeg also formed The Committee, a distillery ‘club’ with a bit more to it than many. Starting with the Very Young, their 6 year old bottling released in 2004, many of the releases have first been made available to the members of The Committee first, with their comments being solicited before general release. They go further than many distillery clubs with a members room at the distillery and all members receiving a book of Rules and Regulations, with special attention brought to paragraph 17:

17. The office of a member shall be vacated if:
He becomes of unsound mind to the extent that he develops a preference for a different spirit; or
He is directly or indirectly connected with the dilution of any dram of Ardbeg Islay Single Malt Whisky with any substance other than water.

I recently joined The Committee having heard that they were holding their 10th anniversary celebrations. I’d not tried any of their recent bottlings, but had a sample of one of their new releases and had been occasionally delving into SWMS bottlings when they appeared, so didn’t feel too bad about jumping on a free drink bandwagon a little late. The celebrations also showed me how they’ve upped their game online – the venue for both Edinburgh and London parties was revealed slowly via cryptic clues on twitter, with a goody bag going to the first person to guess -  annoyingly I didn’t have enough of a clue to even guess the London location and was about 2 minutes walk away with my guess as to the Edinburgh one.

In the end the London party was held at The Worx, on Heathman’s Road, near The White Horse in Parson’s Green (from the clues: ‘on the Ardbeg tube line’, ‘down south, however didn’t dare cross the river’, ‘Wretched Rector after a bumpy sail through Corryvreckan‘, ‘Poor Shortie [the Ardbeg dog and mascot] nearly got trampled by a fair stallion on the way’, ‘where the peat cutters of the heath reside’…obvious once you know the answer). The format of the evening was simple – turn up, have a cocktail and wander around the venue playing fairground games (I won a nice cashmere scarf on the hoop-la), eating food and drinking copious amounts of whisky.

The initial cocktail of the evening was simple and remarkably effective, especially as peaty whisky is a very difficult thing to mix effectively (and that act against paragraph 17, above). It was a combination of Ardbeg 10, crushed ice, simple syrup and bruised mint leaves. It was a bit like a sticky mojito with a slab of peat, but was also very refreshing and a great palate cleanser.

On the bar they had a selection of Ardbeg whiskies and I started off with the Ardbeg 10. On the nose there was a touch of acetone with the inevitable peat, along with a strong alcoholic sweetness,  a touch of woodsmoke and some butterscotch. To taste it was buttery with a sweet orangey peatiness and coal dust. Water dropped out a lot of the sweetness, compacted the coal dust into briquettes and brought out a woodsmoke finish. Not a subtle dram, but a good smoky, peaty whisky for those who like it quite sweet.

Next I tried the Rollercoaster, the most recent Committee bottling, bottled for the 10th anniversary, and one that won’t hit the general public because it’ll sell out before it has a chance. It’s a vatting of 10 casks, one from each year between 1997 and 2006 – Chris and Lucas have a complete list of the casks over on The Edinburgh Whisky blog. This was the one that I was most wanting to try, as I suspected it’d disappear before I got another chance. On the nose it had sulphur, sea salt, sea weed, oranges and a very hard edged peatiness, almost stony. To taste it had wood ash, eggs, more stony peat, coal smoke and a smokey sweetness. A bit of water toned everything down a bit and brought out more sweetness, with a hint of smoky bacon and sweet butter. I really rather liked it and have worryingly found that you can still buy it from the Ardbeg shop. I must resist.

Next I went for the Corryvreckan, another former Committee bottling that was brought in to replace Airgh name Beist, their previous top cask strength whisky. On the nose it had the BBQ chicken smell that I’m starting to think is my brain’s interpretation of woody wine/sherry influence, as well as white sherry, eggs and sea weed. To taste it was spicy with apples, burnt toffee, raisins and a lingering smoky peaty finish. Another good’un and one that deserved its win as best single malt whisky in this year’s World Whisky Awards, as well as numerous other gongs.

Finally, as I’d missed the last of the Supernova, Ardbeg’s super peaty whisky, that they had on the bar, I went for the Blasda. This one was described to me as “a lady’s dram”, with only 20ppm of phenols in the malt and a move to a lighter style. On the nose it was light and sweet with a hint of fruit that might have been cherry. To taste it was buttery and prickly, with sour peat and red berries. Most of all it was surprisingly light for a peaty whisky, especially an Ardbeg, even though this is the intention. Water brought out both cream and a bitterness from the wood as well as touch of cardboard and some struck matches. An interesting experiment, but not one that really grabbed my attention.

Overall it was rather a good night, although the free flowing whisky (there were tokens for some drinks, but by the end of the night the giant bottle of Rollercoaster they had on a smaller bar was being tipped into any glass that came near) meant that there was some drunkenness. If Jerry, the nice Glaswegian chap who tried (unsuccessfully) to teach me some Scottish toasts, is reading this then please drop me an email – I owe you a beer or two and I have the glasses you won, you left them in the pub. Yes, there was a pub after, which was probably a mistake.

Some gorillas. It was safer not to ask.

While I may have missed the previous release of Supernova, I added a sample of this year’s one to my most recent Master of Malt order and thought I’d add it on the end here. Supernova is intended to be the peatiest whisky that the distillery produces, using 100+ppm malt, and the last release had a hint of the Marmite effect to it – many people didn’t seem to rate it, but those who liked it really liked it. After the success of the last bottling they’ve rolled out a new one for this year – Supernova 2010. It’s pale gold and has no age statement, but with the intensity of flavour I would guess it has a good range of whisky in it. On the nose it has (as expected) lots of peat, along with salted butter, fresh mulch and some wet grass. To taste it’s spicy and every bit of its 60.1%. It starts with a big burst of sherried caramel sweetness and then moves through coal dust to a bitter burnt wood finish. In the middle there’s a bit of a fizzy citrus flavour which the chaps at Master of Malt describe as being like Starburst chews. I see what they mean but a) still reckon they should be called Opal Fruits and b) reckon that the flavour is more like fizzy orange and lemon Chewits. Water kills a lot of the bitterness as well as bringing out more of the fizzy fruit. This release has generally been considered inferior to the last one from what I’ve read, but as I didn’t get to taste the old one I can only assume it was really good (it does now change hands for about £125 a bottle) – I rather liked this one, with its peatiness being mellowed, but not too much, by some of the younger flavours and with a depth that I didn’t necessarily expect.

Ardbeg 10
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 46%. ~£35

Ardbeg Rollercoaster
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 57.4%. £50 from the Ardbeg shop

Ardbeg Corryvreckan
No age statement
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 57.1%. ~£60

Ardbeg Blasda
No age statement
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 40%. ~£45

Ardbeg Supernova 2010
No age statement
Single malt Islay Scotch whisky, 60.1%. ~£80