It's been a while since I've updated reviews on this blog but now that my schooling is done I can hopefully update once a week!
Although when I said that before it didn't go so well...but hopefully it will this time!
Anyhow onto the review!
I miss trying Ardbeg. It's been a while since I've had Ardbeg with some sherry in it, the last time came many years ago when I first tried the Uigedail and now as I'm months away from a long-delayed trip to the sunny (or maybe not so sunny come early October) shores of Islay! So to prepare myself for what will likely be a quick stop to Ardbeg distillery, mostly due to the fact that their tours are allegedly not up to par compared to their neighbours at Laphroaig and Lagavulin, I decided to give a try of a cask strength Ardbeg that I'd not had a chance to review before! Since I didn't feel like dropping too much money on a dram of Lord of The Isles (which will come eventually as long as The Feathers still have it around) I decided to go for the next best thing and try the Ardbog!
So this is the 2013 Ardbeg Day release which has been aged for at least 10 years, with the majority of the maturation in ex-bourbon before a finish in Manzanilla sherry casks. I've only had one run in with this sherry maturation with a slightly older Bowmore OB from their Vintner's Collection and it wasn't really anything special but still quite a tasty dram so hopefully this one will be more to my liking!
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Age: NAS
Region: Islay
Cask Type(s): Ex-Bourbon Finished in Manzanilla Sherry Butts
ABV: 52.1%
No. of Bottles: 13,000
Maturation Time: Bottled in 2013
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- Colour: Dark Amber, almost Toffee Coloured
- Nose: Smoked orange creamsicle fudge, if you can imagine how that would taste, followed by some cocoa, rich vanilla, mild chilli peppers, loads of lemon citrus and fresh mandarin oranges and then some smoking applewood in the background
- Palate: Punchy sweet and salty plums and chewy orange candy dominate the palate and is complimented by some sea salt and floral peat that’s very unusual for Ardbeg along with toffee, cocoa powder, soft cheese, red licorice and sharp cinnamon
- Finish: Medium to Long with smoked cedarwood, cherries and smoked pork
This is such a bright and lovely dram of sherried Ardbeg. There’s some very lovely mixes of sweet citrus, cereal sugars and saltiness that make the melding of the baked spirt and the heavy sherry cask work very well for itself. Water brings out more of the salt but doesn’t really add much complexity from what I find so keeping neat might be a bit better or just letting it sit on it’s own for a while before trying. It’s easily the best Ardbeg Day Release bottling I’ve had (although I haven’t tried Dark Cove, Galileo, Alligator or any of the Supernova bottlings yet so this May change) and if it wasn’t so expensive on the secondary I would 100% get a bottle of this as it definitely hits the sweet sherry and peat combo better then almost every Islay I’ve tried. Ardbeg should really go do some single sherry casks for future Ardbeg Day editions if they can even come close to how good this one is.
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