This entire thing I’m doing (and many others with me) of whisky blogging is really fun, quite a bit of work and sometimes utterly confusing. Sometimes you try something that you expect everyone to love and it just falls flat. Sometimes it’s the other way around.

Some of these situations, but not many, can be attributed to shit samples that have been tainted in some way. Sometimes a whisky just takes more than a little 2cl sample to get through, or to make sense.

This is one of them.

I initially tried this after Michiel sent me a sample and I was not over the moon about it. Of course it was good, but not stellar. And stellar is something it had to be based on everyone else’s rave reviews. I chatted about this with GvB and he kindly gave me another sample, also stating how wrong I was. How he generally doesn’t care for Islay whiskies but bought two bottles of this and so on.

Oh, before I forget. It’s an Ardbeg whisky. It doesn’t say on the label, but this knowledge isn’t very hard to come by on the internet.

Of course, doing my due diligence, I tried it again, with the following result.

Sniff:
It’s quintessential Islay with lots of grass, seaweed, salinity, and pepper. Slightly ashy with a rather intense peatiness. If you’d imagine heavily peated Rosebank, this’d be it. There is soot and some oak shavings too.

Sip:
The palate is highly consistent with the nose, but packs a surprising punch. The notes of white pepper and harsh woody notes are amped up. Accompanied by apple, straw, salinity and brine. Also, quite intensely smoky, and quite intensely coastal. Charcoal, walnut shells and ash.

Swallow:
The finish is, again, consistent. Very clean, very smoky, very spirit driven. Lots of white pepper, lots of straw.

I really don’t get how I didn’t seem to understand this whisky at first. Especially since it’s the style of Islay whisky that I really enjoy but haven’t encountered for ages. The ‘heavily peated, slightly briny Lowlands’ stuff that this one has going on in oodles. This is what Islay whisky used to be all about in years long gone. Maybe I had forgotten? Maybe my palate took a sick day without telling me?

Anyway, of course it’s long gone, especially since Serge Valentin gave it 92 points. That means they fly off any shelf they’re on regardless of price. Initially this went for € 250, but currently it’s only available in the secondary market for € 600…

91/100