Ardbeg 10yo
750ml Official Bottling | 46% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Carries enough fortifying strength to reassure us of what it means to go on
Of Peat and Death
Like so many others, I have had to come to terms with unexpected and untimely loss in the last few years.
In my case it was the loss of a friend who took their own life as a consequence of the effect of severe sleep deprivation caused by the persistent symptoms of long Covid. It was shocking, tragic and utterly awful in every way.
Inevitably, those of us that shared the loss of a friend did what we could to help each other come to terms with the sense of grief and shock common to us all.
We gathered.
We gathered of a cold evening around an angry, twisting, roaring fire. Staring deeply into the gnarled, splintered and tortured fragments of wood as they succumbed to their inevitable fate.
And we drank.
And what we drank was peated.
Almost all of us that night drank scotch. And every one of us independently chose a peated whisky. Gnarly, aggressive, uncompromising and relentlessly earthy. Peat, it seems, is what speaks to us when in moments of loss. Moments of grief, of mourning, of anger and gut-wrenching sadness.
As emotionally exposed as we are to the moment, it seems that many of us need a spirit that matches us. A spirit that is as raw and as real as we feel. Not a whisky that will soothe us, calm us down and tell us it will all be alright. But a whisky that allows us to feel our loss, to feel our anger, our despair, and our pain. A sweet, sherried whisky simply won’t do it. It’s too easy. Too smooth. Too nice.
And death isn’t nice.
There’s something about the uncompromisingly raw nature of heavily-peated whisky that resonates in moments of death and personal tragedy. The forceful nature of the spirit speaks to our need to feel and to feel deeply.
When discussing this line of thought with Charlie MacLean, he summed it up perfectly when he spoke of the elemental nature of peat.
Nothing can be more elemental than our relationship with death and mortality. And the elemental nature of the emotions we wrestle with at these times is somehow reflected in the essential nature of the peat. Which itself is literally comprised of death and decay. It is the essence of decomposition brought to life and given flavour. And bite.
The millennia of botanical life that are compressed over the centuries into the damp, salty soil of Islay to turn, over time, into the earth itself comes to life again through its infusion into the sharp and assertive spirit of the Scots.
And on Islay, that peat and the spirit it infuses has been touched by the elements that have shaped the geography and the character of the island itself – the elements that flavour and define the whisky we turn to in grief.
The crashing angry seas that throw brine and salt into the air and soil of the island.
The Westerly winds that cross the ocean, gather the scent and flavour of everything that speaks of the sea and our memories of it. From the smells of the open shores of low tide to the furious storms that lash and shape the coast over time.
The condensation that is drawn up from the waves far out at sea before being hurled down as rain and the volcanic rock that filters it into the belly of the island both do their part in flavouring the water that finds its way into as the whisky with which we toast the memory of the loved ones we have lost.
Peated whisky isn’t pretty. It’s seldom delicate. It doesn’t need to be – it’s peat for God’s sake. What can be more elemental than infusing your whisky with dirt?
Peated whisky fortifies. And it has sufficient presence to somehow embody the strength to go on. A whisky that by virtue of the elements that comprise it is somehow timeless and forever.
And that’s why so many of us turn to it in moments of grief.
The elemental nature of the feelings we have in these moments is matched by the elemental nature of the whisky. It’s unyielding. And its rawness helps us feel what we need to feel and at the same time it fortifies us to go on – as inevitably we must.
Perhaps there’s even something ancient and ritualistic in this thing that exists between peat and death.
Just maybe, we are enacting some version of a ritual of a bygone culture, where we consume that which represents death in order to master our fear of it.
Perhaps peat – as a product of death and decay – represents the very essence of death itself. And by consuming it in our moments of grief and sorrow we fortify ourselves to move forward.
Why else does death demand peat?
Review
Ardbeg 10yo, official bottling, non-chill filtered, 46% ABV
£50-58 and widely available
That night, for me at least, the whisky the occasion demanded happened to be the Ardbeg 10.
It was an unthinking and instinctive decision rather than the result of lengthy deliberation. It intuitively felt right. I wasn’t the only one who drank it that night, but it was the only one I drank.
Admittedly, the world really doesn’t need another review of the Ardbeg 10. And as a first review on Dramface, it’s an intimidating choice as there’s probably few people reading this that don’t already know what they think of it.
But as that’s what I drank on the night, that’s what I’m writing about now. So there you have it.
In point of fact, probably the best tasting note I’ve ever heard for this iconic brute of a dram came from a friend when he encountered it for the first time – “It’s like drinking direct from the teat of a Highland cow that’s just crawled out of a peat bog!”. This from a man who is not inclined toward the peaty end of things. He hasn’t returned to it since, but I can’t fault his assessment.
For myself, I knew that I wanted peated whisky that night and I think I chose the Ten as to me it’s a whisky that is unfussy and entirely unpretentious. A whisky that provides exactly what we’ve come to expect of it in a sort of stoic, reliable and steadfast way.
It’s the sort of dram that communicates a kind of unapologetic confidence and assertiveness. A sense of certainty. Which was exactly what I needed as we all tried to come to terms with the loss we were reeling from.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Carries enough fortifying strength to reassure us of what it means to go on
Nose
As soon as I open the bottle there’s a waft of iodine or TCP, but it mellows and hides itself in a flash, to linger in the background throughout.
There’s citrus – mostly lemon. It’s definitely there, but wrapped as it is in the embrace of the inevitable earthy smoke of the peat, it takes on a restrained or even refined character like a waft of scent in an old library.
The briny notes are there and there’s also something green – maybe drying seaweed on the shore at low tide. And for me at least, there’s a note of ash.
Despite the presence of the smoke, the nose retains a clean and fresh character. So maybe it’s distant smoke on a windy day. It’s there, but there’s room for other stuff to happen too.
Palate
Salty, smoky, creamy and ballsy. It grabs you by the palate, filling the mouth with iodine and driftwood, more citrus and some fudge or caramel lurking beneath.
It’s not the iodine of Laphroaig, but there’s no question that it’s there and childhood memories of TCP are inevitably invoked (if you grew up in the UK of the 60s and 70s anyway).
It really warms the palate and throws out white pepper like a salt truck on an icy road.
The creaminess remains and though it might seem at odds with the raw and even aggressive nature of the spirit, it works magnificently and is irresistible.
And there’s the hint of a malty note late in the day. And then at the very end there’s a kind of creamy unctuousness like smoked butterscotch or vanilla fudge.
And as for the finish, well it lasts forever. Reminding you of a windy day on a rocky beach as a kid where someone built a fire from driftwood and you ate fish and chips. One decent-sized dram of this and you’ll be set for ages as everything ever-so-slowly fades off over the sea to the cloudy horizon of your memory.
The smoke, peat, sweet citrus and the iodine linger the longest until there’s just a warm feeling and nothing more.
The Dregs
This Ardbeg 10yo is gorgeous stuff that makes you sit up and pay attention no matter how many times you’ve had it before.
It’s got loads of character for its ABV of 46%. Most of my whisky is drunk at cask strength and I’m always impressed by anything at 40-46% that behaves like this. I guess that’s the assertiveness, but either way, this outdrinks many whiskies I’ve tried with an ABV of 50% or more. It’s not messing around. It’s robust.
For all the talk of the smoke in Ardbeg, my ageing palate doesn’t find that it steals the show. Even the label references the “intense smoky intensity” (which is one too many “enses” for my liking) but there’s lots more to savour here and this is anything but a one note dram. And it will unquestionably put hairs on your chest.
It’s a good firepit whisky. A cold weather whisky. A cut-the-crap whisky. And on the night in question, it served us well.
And now I need some fish and chips.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. NF
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