Official Annual Release | 48% ABV

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*A more syrupy and sweet take on the already great core range*

Thundering Typhoons!

Being away on business, as my wife and I are every month, means being a one-car-household leaves the remainer somewhat stranded at home. The buses are every 5 hours because one bus goes around the Trotternish peninsula clockwise, and another bus goes around it anti-clockwise. The 57C and the 57A.

The nearest place to buy a second car is in Inverness, so on a balmy May morning I embarked upon a CityLink voyage to the big smoke, and the only thing you could smell as each new hiker entered the cabin was Smidge. That and Avon’s Skin So Soft. We moved to the island of Skye to get away from the buzz of the lowland radgies setting fire to houses, but now must deal with something altogether more sinister: the highland midgies.

It’s all true what they say. Western Scotland midges are the most brutal beasts. Unrelenting in their pursuit to cause you sleepless nights, these wee bamsticks are most prevalent when the wind drops and the air is damp. Just walking from house to garage is a feat of endurance, and when they strike, they take no prisoners.

Given they’re almost undetectable wee dots, it’s hilarious how much trouble they cause and we are often found swearing in agitated bursts as more teeth find their target. I now announce into the empty room that it’s a godsend that there’s a breeze, knowing that those suckers can’t compete with a mild wind.

The entertainment for the locals, who are time-served professional midgie dodgers, is to watch as tourists flap their hands and curse the lack of liquid deterrent in their giant rucksacks. We’re not yet considered of local status, but we certainly have ourselves forearmed to try and cope with the May through September midgie season.

Ardnamurchan Distillery is a caber toss short of the most westerly point in the British Isles, and as a result enjoy the same blight as everyone else out here. Some days they’re remarkably inactive, other days you would sell your mum for a gauze hat and flamethrower. When Ardnamurchan announced a new 48% whisky, with a label clearly showing the white background and AD/ badge, the rumour mill was grinding its gears: what could this unique expression be?

Turns out it’s a collaboration between Ardnamurchan and Smidge, a brilliantly timed release, perfectly titled “The Midgie” with cartoon artwork on label, tartan bonnet an’aw. But what’s different about this versus the core range?

It features the same blend of peated and unpeated spirits as the core range, 13 bourbon barrels with some peated and some unpeated, 1 unpeated sherry butt. But The Midgie has an addition of quite a lot of sauternes and madeira casks thrown in for interest - 5 barrels of each. Why not! The slight increase in ABV is welcome, and the price not that much higher than their core - Ardnamurchan can’t ever be called opportunists when it comes to price.

I bought it because I loved the idea of a Smidge flavoured whisky, but also because I haven’t tried much Ardnamurchan until now…

Review 1/5 - Dougie

Ardnamurchan The Midgie, 2024 UK exclusive release, Peated bourbon, Sauternes & Madeira. Unpeated bourbon & sherry, 48% ABV
£50 - £54 (£50.90 paid) and plentiful (6,200 bottles)

Nose

Fudgey Wudgie. Salty sea. Bit of peppery smoke. Lots of woody popcorn. Vanilla syrup. Fried banana. Cedar woods. Mineralic stuff - rocks on a beach, shells, streams. Wee bit of school brick paints.

Palate

Sweetness and syrup. Red peppercorns and chilli chocolate. Salty, mineralic and coastal sea breeze. The fudgy bourbs and the redness from sherry is well integrated with the Madeira heat and Sauternes sauciness, as is the peat. A balanced, delicious dram. A bit of ashy peat.

The Dregs

Classic Ardnamurchan in character - sweet and salty, chalky, rocky, shelly, smoky barbecued marshmallows and all the rest. But it’s a touch sweeter, a bit more peppery and has a good dose of syrupy goodness in there too, a character I don’t recall ever thinking about with the AD/ core range.

To keep it short, it’s a wee touch more engaging for me than the core range, exhibits a solid, interesting flavour stage, has little to no inclination of its youthful 4-8 years maturation and is very moreish. I’ve tried this against some older core range and it’s taking the lead for me. Where the core range is maybe a 7.2, this expression is a 7.8.

Abundant in supply and good value, I could drink this all day long. Another solid, reliable, delicious whisky from Glenbeg and another reason to get excited for what they're capable of.

Score: 7/10 DC

Review 2/5 - Paisley

Ardnamurchan The Midgie, 2024 UK exclusive release, Peated bourbon, Sauternes & Madeira. Unpeated bourbon & sherry, 48% ABV
£50 - £54 and plentiful (6,200 bottles)

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Ardnamurchan with a pleasant surprise*

Nose

This opens in bright, sparkling form for me with sour apple chewit sweets and cloudy cider to the fore, followed in short order by sherbet dib dabs, a good sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese, something powdery in there too, along with a dash of crystallised ginger.

Palate

Slightly oily mouthfeel, that zingy nose continues to vibrate on the tongue, bringing a slightly sharp, peppery, almost ashy heat, before mellowing quite suddenly into cinnamon and vanilla rice pudding with heavy cream, salted toffee and nut brittle, for a medium to long to finish.

But wait, Just when I think I’ve had everything this dram has to deliver on the flavour-front, I get a lingering savoury parmesan cheese note coming back through, and a further dash of that spicy black pepper and warming ginger.

The Dregs

For me this is a canny, fun dram from Ardnamurchan which really delivers on flavour, and priced at around £51, is pretty reasonable on the pocket too for a whisky of this quality!

Something about it really recommends this dram for summer drinking too – it has that slight surprise, unpredictable flavour element to it which lends itself to that sense of just going with the flow and having fun, whatever the weather (or lack of insect repellent) brings!

Score wise I’m giving this a solid 7 out of 10, very good indeed, Dramface rating.

Score: 7/10 PMc

Review 3/5 - Gilbert

Ardnamurchan The Midgie, 2024 UK exclusive release, Peated bourbon, Sauternes & Madeira. Unpeated bourbon & sherry, 48% ABV
£50 - £54 and plentiful (6,200 bottles)

I’m far from an Ardnamurchan expert, with this being only my fourth dip into the widely praised distillery. So do I agree with the hype? Yes I do, and this is a prime example of why.

From the outside this could look like a bit of a lifeless tie-in along the lines of Jameson x Classic Football Shirts and Diageo x Game of Thrones. However, the transparent charm of Ardnamurchan it feels a valid pairing featuring their local Highland pests and a unique cask make up; sans ground up bugs, as far as I can tell.

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Classic Ardna with a softer bite*

Nose

Reminiscent of a recent aroma of melted salted caramel and Belgian milk chocolate cookies I was hit with opening my car boot last week. Think a sugary biscuit sweetness, tied in with liquid chocolate and a slight salty, toffee breeze. A slight plum port note hanging in the back with whiffs of blueish burgundy, if you’ll allow the synesthesia.

Palate

Surprisingly light, fresh and fruity on the first sip. Plums, honey and oranges take centre stage, bolstered by a very soft smoke filling the back of the palate. The texture feels slightly thinner than the ABV would suggest, it doesn’t harm the well rounded flavours as it coats the teeth.There is an almost Play-dough tang which becomes more prevalent as the glass goes down.

A fresh, white pepper, medium-long finish encourages another sip.

The Dregs

While I could be tempted to describe this as an Ardnamurchan AD/ without the punch, a better description would be that the Ardna essence has been placed in a hydraulic press, concentrating and spreading the profile into new flavours. Probably a bad description from me after emerging from a Tik Tok rabbit hole.

Either way, another solid outing at a price you won’t swat away.

Score: 7/10 GG

Review 4/5 - Nick

Ardnamurchan The Midgie, 2024 UK exclusive release, Peated bourbon, Sauternes & Madeira. Unpeated bourbon & sherry, 48% ABV
£50 - £54 and plentiful (6,200 bottles)

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Without question, the best insect repellent to have ever passed my lips*

Nose

A heap of wet, three day-old grass clippings. Maybe silage. Overripe pears that have started to ferment. Digestive biscuit (no chocolate), honey, furniture polish, golden syrup, lychee and a wisp of smoke and menthol.

Palate

Barley sugar. Wood stain. It’s creamy, oily and pleasingly viscous. Resinous. Lightly smoked treacle tart, lemon sponge cake and pepper. In time there's the suggestion of pears in ginger syrup. There’s a saltiness like brackish water – slightly dirty and vegetal.

Black pepper lingers and slides into ash, soot and a cold fireplace on the finish which is subtle but really wonderful. That’s the prevailing note for me on what is a long and very appealing finish.

There’s even a touch of cured meats on the exhale after it goes down.

The Dregs

This bottle is not going to last long. Since opening it for this review I’ve ordered another from across the pond.

It’s not only well and truly worth the retail price, to me at least it’s also well worth the cost of shipping. I’m a soft target when it comes to Ardnamurchan – they tend to live in my sweet spot of feisty, characterful whisky and they do a masterful job of blending peated and unpeated whisky.

And their spirit seems to love fortified wine casks and other such creatures. We can only hope that The Midgie will become an annual appearance – much like its decidedly less appealing namesake.

Lovely stuff!

Score: 7/10 NF

Review 5/5 - Wally

Ardnamurchan The Midgie, 2024 UK exclusive release, Peated bourbon, Sauternes & Madeira. Unpeated bourbon & sherry, 48% ABV
£50 - £54 (£53 paid)and plentiful (6,200 bottles)

Thank you if you got this far; there was a lot of willing participation for this bottle, it seems to have captured the imagination of many.

And why not? It’s Ardna, with the magical formula of honest, transparent integrity at a fair price, with a generous dash of fun thrown in. It oozes personality too. All the things that so many other brands seem incapable of embracing.

Anecdotally, I was told this came about as the team were brainstorming how they could celebrate their local environs and wildlife out on the Peninsula. Stags are done to death, Heelan’ coos are omnipresent, eagles fly everywhere, Clynelish nicked the local wildcat and Diageo’s Flora and Fauna series mops up everything else indigenous to the Highlands.

Then Graeme, one of the sales team, quipped “We should just cover a bottle in black dots and call it The Midgie”.

And a concept is born. Black dots and all. Brilliant.

And brilliantly on point too. One of your enduring memories of a calm summer’s day in the Highlands will undoubtedly be midgies. They are terror incarnate.

On Islay in 2022, we took such an amazing collection of bottles along with us that our mantelpiece looked like we’d emptied the glass cabinets at La Maison Du Whisky. We were spoilt by wondrous choice. But all of it was shunned in favour of another kind of liquid altogether.

As we sat outside in the sunshine, my pal from Norway suggested our midgie horror stories were made up - just like our tales of haggis hunts and loch monsters. As the gentle breeze kept us cool and midgie-free, he was confident we’d invented this ‘invisible flying death’.

Then, as the evening approached, the breeze died and the humid air brought with it the sense that we were being eaten. Which of course we were. Only after he’d listened to our chorus of “I told you so” was he permitted to share in the most valuable liquid in the house: Smidge repellant.

Score: 7/10

**Very good indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*More than a gimmick; a genuine alt Ardna*

Nose

Salty coastal air, wet rocks, ginger snaps, butter, pears, maple pecan and cold soot.

Palate

The crisp and saline arrival is brittle and effervescent. Bitter lemon, eucalyptus, grapefruit, granny smith apples. There’s a definite fizz to things, like glucose tablets. The finish is cool fireside smoke, menthol, cinnamon and ginger, with a nice acidity.

There’s an overall lightness; a brightness and a sparkle to things. Water softens the fruit to a grape note and dampens down the spices, even bringing along some white chocolate.

The Dregs

Just need to say…

I can’t be the only one with a slight ick, can I? It’s nothing to do with the wee biting terrorist, but much more to do with the Smidge collaboration. It’s not an unpleasant aroma, as repellants go, but it’s not a flavour or essence thought I’d like anywhere in my head as I enjoy whisky.

Look, I know that’s just me, and I’m already over it, especially now I have a full bottle in front of me. It’s come to mean more than just a fun theme. Incredibly, with the shelves of the whisky pit sagging with bottles, along comes another that is fascinatingly unlike any others I have. I’m often on the fence when it comes to Sauternes, but I’m a convert of Madeira. My tasting notes probably don’t reflect how much fruit there is in the glass.

Most Ardnamurchan releases, for me, have this wonderful outdoors-y quality to them. This is no different, but there’s a mineralic sweetness to things, an acidity and - dare I say - bite. It’s overall sense of brightness will make it a great one for the summer too.

I understand this will become an annual release, I hope they not only play a little with the cask make up each time, but play around with annual Midgie artwork too. It could turn into a very cool thing indeed.

£53? Easy to recommend.

Just finished building and editing this and noticing the scores - consensus! That’s never happened! 🦟

Score: 7/10 WMc

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC

Dramface is free.
Its fierce independence and community-focused content is funded by that same community. We don’t do ads, sponsorships or paid-for content. If you like what we do you can support us by becoming a Dramface member for the price of a magazine.
However, if you’ve found a particular article valuable, you also have the option to make a direct donation to the writer, here: buy me a dram - you’d make their day. Thank you.
For more on Dramface and our funding read our about page here.