Ardbeg
Fact Sheet
Founded: 1815
Current owner: LVMH (Glenmorangie)
Stills: 1 wash, 1 spirit
Capacity: 1 million litres per year
Location: Port Ellen, Isle of Islay
Website: www.ardbeg.com
Notable Facts: Ardbeg was mothballed in 1981. There was minimal production from 1989 to 1996. After the takeover by Glenmorangie and substantial restauration work, the distillery was reopened in 1997.
Report of my visit to Ardbeg Distillery
Bottlings
October 23, 2011
Simply an excellent bottling. The sherry influence adds yet another layer of flavours to the already very rich Ardbeg spirit. – Rating: 92/100
July 8, 2011
This is an excellent new spirit, very strongly flavoured but astonishingly smooth to drink even undiluted. It can take a lot of water, though. – Rating: 84/100
May 14, 2011
This is a very fine example of the legendary old Ardbegs, much more delicacy instead of today’s in-your-face peat. The tropical fruit aromas give it a very intriguing touch. – Rating: 89/100
December 9, 2010
This legendary bottling is now traded at very high prices. Don’t excpect anything like the modern peat bombs Ardbeg currently offers. A very nice dram, light, fruity and fresh, but definitely not worth today’s prices. – Rating: 86/100
November 1, 2010
This lightly peated Ardbeg is not at all unpleasant, but yet it leaves you with a feeling that there is something missing in this dram. – Rating: 82/100
May 26, 2010
The nose is terrific, but on the palate the sweetness is a little too much for my taste. But that’s just complaining on a very high level. It still is a damn fine malt. – Score: 87/100
March 20, 2010
Extremely long, peated salty fruit at first, followed by numbness. – Score: ??/100 Yes, you read right. I honestly don’t know how to rate this whisky.
March 12, 2010
Some prefer it over the Rollercoaster, but I think it has a certain lack of oomph that is not really made up by greater complexity or better balance. Still very good though, mind you. – Score: 86/100
March 11, 2010
The Rollercoaster received slightly mixed reviews, but I really like it. The vatting of 10 vintages gives is an astonishing complexity. – Score: 90/100
January 25, 2010
A powerful dram where a bit of sherry successfully underlines the typical Ardbeg flavour profile – Score: 91/100
November 9, 2009
This is a fantastic dram. Strong peat perfectly balanced with strong vanilla. almost no sweetness in here and only a little fruit. – Score: 93/100
July 18, 2009
Peat punch and delicate sweetness well balanced. One of the best entry level bottlings around – Score: 84/100
Mentioned in These Articles
May 17, 2012
A summary of the Scotch single malt blind tasting competition
May 11, 2012
More than once I have been grumpy about whisky marketing stunts because I just have a bullshit allergy. But here are three examples of campaigns that I honestly enjoy.
October 10, 2011
I received an invitation for this year’s Whisky Show organized by The Whisky Exchange at Vinopolis in London. Even though it was not quite easy to fit this into my schedule, I decided to accept anyway.
July 22, 2011
This is an entirely subjective collection of whisky pricing monstrosities that I have come across in the past months.
June 23, 2011
The Islay rumour mill is running red hot thse days. The success of the latest committee bottling, Ardbeg Alligator, must have been so overwhelming that the distillery spontaneously decided to up the ante.
June 13, 2011
Yes, I really mean it!
May 25, 2011
During my Scotland whisky trip I made quite a lot of experiences that are not really worthy of an entire blog post but should not go unmentioned nonetheless.
February 20, 2011
Having a major whisky festival more or less around the corner is a rare privilege, so it’s virtually mandatory for a whisky blogger to attend it.
January 29, 2011
I have recevied a document from an anonymous source shedding light on the inner workings within the marketing departments of the Scotch whisky industry.
January 15, 2011
After my journey to Islay in May 2010 I thought it would be only consequent to also visit the other whisky focal point in Scotland, Speyside. The Spring Festival 2010 is taking place from 28th April to 2nd May.
January 1, 2011
Just before Christmas I was enjoying a celebratory dram or three with my old friend Keith Wood of Whisky-Emporium.com and as often happens after a few Drams and when the night draws in, we set about putting the world, or at least whisky world, to rights.
November 13, 2010
The whisky industry uses Twitter in many different ways. Let me introduce you to a couple of industry tweeps – the selection is not exhaustive but should give you a good overview on what’s happening.
November 2, 2010
Year of Birth: 1962
Place of Residence: Haddonfield, NJ, USA
Profession: Journalist
Whisky Involvement: Podcast
September 29, 2010
Year of Birth: 1973
Place of Residence: Guilford, CT, USA
Profession: Sales and Marketing Manager
Whisky Involvement: Society president, blogger
September 22, 2010
To create a bit of a cross between gravlax and smoked salmon I had the idea of adding smoky whisky to the curing ingredients. I think the comparatively light-bodied and fresh character of Ardbeg is the perfect match for the salmon.
September 14, 2010
In many articles about whisky you can find statements like “The difference between Scotch an bourbon is that Scotch tastes smoky”. This is a generalization that is simply not correct.
September 5, 2010
Place of Birth: Leeds, Yorkshire, England
Place of Residence: Erding, Bavaria, Germany
Profession: Business Analyst, currently unemployed
Whisky Involvement: Reviewer and commentator
June 30, 2010
A guest article by Keith Wood of www.whisky-emporium.com
May 27, 2010
Some bloggers are obsessed with their site statistics, some don’t care at all, and I for one am somewhere in between. Every couple of weeks I dig deeply into my Google Analytics page to see what’s been going on on my blog. For those of you who are interested in website statistics as well, I [...]
May 23, 2010
No, this is not really supposed to be a tourist guide. In this article I would like to share my experiences of Islay that are not related to specific whisky distilleries. I had never been on Islay before, so I think the title is appropriate.
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