Ardbeg 10 Year Old

Let’s face it, there are surely only two possible reasons that you might be reading this review. Either you’ve never tried Ardbeg 10 year old whisky before and you’ve decided to find the most obscure review possible before committing to buy it or not. Or else you already know the drink and are looking at this to reinforce your opinion that you love or hate Ardbeg.

I suppose a third option would be that you’ve stumbled across this by accident and haven’t made it past the first sentence before clicking away. So well done for making it this far.

Ardbeg – it clearly a manly drink for manly men. I mean just look at that bottle for a start – so dark, so brooding, they could slap a label on there saying ‘It’s not for girls’ if it weren’t a direct breach of copyright to do so. But you’ll probably know Ardbeg, like Laiphroaig and most of the other Islay are the Peaty Beasts. Strongly flavoured, medicinal and often seen as an acquired taste.

Looking at reviews and comments online you see the same phrases coming up – it's all "blasts of peat smoke" this, "full flavoured" that and "monster" the other. Everything is very big and aggressive. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of subtlety but it clearly inspires some serious dedication.

I do like a peaty whisky and I’m pretty familiar with Ardbeg but this is the first time I’ve thought to compile any notes on a bottle. So here goes;

There’s no doubting is a serious no-nonsense whisky. I think it keeps things simple and plays to its not inconsiderable strengths. It’s too brawny to be considered smooth but it’s not harsh. A bit of burn so it’s worth a little dash of water. As you’re drinking it you realise it’s a little lighter than you might expect with a bit of sweetness - citrusy fruit rather than sherry. Also, it looks paler than you might expect given the expectation of full-on monster flavour.

Obviously the smoke is there there’s no getting around it but there’s more to it than just a face full of peat. It’s not the same sledgehammer that you get with Laphroaig. It’s more of a fire in the hearth rather than the house being on fire.

So it’s pale, it’s smokey, it’s a little bit sweet. It’s just good stuff but you probably knew that already. Or else you hate the stuff because you don’t like smokey whisky, in which case I can’t really help you.

WW 

Bright Young Things

So I was just talking about whisky possibly being “too old”. But what about youth in whisky? As I said in my last post, the impression you get when starting out in the world of whisky is that single malt has to be at least 10 years old to be any good. 10 or 12 seems to the minimum age of most distillery entry level bottlings.

Obviously whisky can be younger (although it needs to be at least 3) but most stuff released before it turns 10 goes straight into making up the numbers in blends. But is there any good single malt whisky under 10?

Yes, of course there is. I just didn’t know this until recently. The realisation came about during two distillery visits on Islay. The first was genuinely a shock. You may have heard of Octomore whisky – it is produced by Bruichladdich and is the world most heavily peated whisky. It is £100 a bottle.

Also it is only 5 years old.

It seemed amazing that they would try and charge £100 when you could get a 20 year old for that kind of money. Thankfully I was lucky enough to try Octomore 4.2 at Bruichladdich and it’s one of the most amazing whiskies I’ve ever tasted – it was fresh and smooth and surprisingly light given the extreme phenol levels. I didn’t take any proper notes and this isn’t a review but one of the things that surprised me the most, considering the age, was how smooth it tasted. £100 is a lot of money but I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to shelling out that much for a bottle.

So an exceptional young whisky – but maybe that was it, it was an exception. An experiment with high phenol levels that’s produced a freakishly good 5 year old.

The next encounter with young whisky also took me by surprise but mainly because I didn’t realise it was under 10 until after the tasting. I stopped by the Laphroaig distillery, firstly trying the 10 Year Old (a familiar favourite) and then tried the Quarter Cask for the first time. I was won over by this – it really is very flavourful and I’ll post a review in due course. However I had assumed at the time it was a variation on the 10yo but didn’t realise until much later on that whisky is only 6 or 7 years old. The whisky spends 5 years or so matured in full sized casks and then is finished in ¼ cask. The greater surface-area to whisky ratio of the smaller cask means its finished differently and more speedily. Not to the detriment of the whisky I hasten to add - quite the opposite.

So two young whiskies discovered within a couple of days. One of them an experiment but the other a widely available standard bottle.

And the more I’ve looked into this they seem to be everywhere (often referred to as No Age Statement). Sometimes it seems they are bottled at a younger age to get a preview of what they will be like later on. The consensus on tasting notes is that younger whiskies are shorter on the finish but a bit fresher in the taste.

So that’s it. My interest is piqued and it is another facet of whisky to explore. The next whisky in the crosshair is an expression of the highly regarded Kilchoman - the oldest of which is only 5. Watch this space.