Even though I think Ardnamurchan is a distillery that is doing very, very well, they don’t often find their way to my shelf. It maybe has to do with me not paying attention, or simply that there’s so much out there. I find it slightly hard to navigate all the bottlings from that distillery.

However, that does also mean that when someone else does the navigating and offers me a sample I don’t say no. So that’s what happened here too. Someone in the bottle-share club bought a couple of bottles from SMWS (the other one will follow at a later date) and allowed us to chip in and get some samples.

So here we are. Rocket fuel ABV, a sherry cask but from American oak.

Sniff:
Oak, barley, shoe polish. Orchard fruits, apples and oranges (a hard to compare whisky?). A light and mossy crispness. A forest in spring.

Sip:
Fierce, but with lots of layered flavors. Dry barley, lots of wood, fruits and a hintbof spices. White peppery heat with apples, oranges. A pithy bitterness too.

Swallow:
The finish mellows quickly but leaves most flavors. Oak, barley and the sweeter side of the fruits.

As expected from Ardnamurchan, a lovely dram. It doesn’t do anything that’s not been done before by this distillery, but that is also where their strength is. So, really good stuff at an acceptable price (unless you think about the time in cask versus the price… Value for money, if you ask me, although a bit lower ABV would have been nice.

87/100