Ardnageddon
Fifteen Ardnamurchans: A journey through time, space and place.
We are most definitely in the golden age of whisky.
A year to forget? Scratch that. Two years to forget? Scratch that. Three years to forget? The pandemic has cost so much, given so little and demanded everything from everyone that we’re still feeling the shockwaves, ripples and slowly decaying echoes of its presence even now, almost 3 years since those first tinkling alarm bells sounded.
2022: the year in review. Both mentally and physically, that timeframe has a way of opening its vast timely arms to swallow the preceding two years as well, for it’s become a bit of a struggle to recall what year of the pandemic was what. I struggle still, to recall what year I did what thing. I barely remember that Christmas 2021 was served under socially distanced rules, and I got covid in January too, which was a nice way to begin the new year. I shaved all my hair off in protest.
It is, however, very difficult for me to forget the point at which I entered this crazy world of whisky because it was so utterly surprising. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t bore you again, but two years have nearly passed since I sipped the dark amber Uisge Beatha of Dumgoyne and thought “there’s something to this!”. Over the next two years I’d fall down a rabbit hole so quickly and assuredly that my entire lifestyle would begin to revolve around this miraculous spirit. Tentative steps became giant leaping strides as more and more whisky shook the hinges of the hulking oak door marked “New Sensory Experiences”. Soon those hinges would fail and the vast aperture that remained framed so much more than just whisky, the drink, that it’s tantamount to a life defining moment - before whisky and after whisky. I had uncovered people. Like-minded people, no more than that: genuine, selfless people.
Whisky is a vast social construct, but can also be a focused solo endeavour depending on what you want from it. There’s money to be made of course, in swathes if you’re ruthless and carefree enough. There’s billions of pounds waiting to be leveraged, if you are clever enough. But I’m not interested in any of that. I’m interested in the unlocking of memories, the heightening of senses and the life-affirming camaraderie that comes with investing in the enjoyment of ingesting matured, barley-based distillate.
2022 for me was a bit of a lesson in convergence. The halcyon days of gathering, hand over fist, bottles from all regions of whisky ceased, soon after the embers of hogmanay came to rest on the cold, damp ground and the year began afresh. My new year expectations were full of promise and hope, if only for a better time of it - 2021 was difficult for me professionally and personally and I guess in retrospect whisky’s introduction into my life offset that flaming pit of stress and despair, with unbridled joy and fun. Balance: the elusive key to life, so they say, and my life required some pretty heavy weighting, especially after I blew my knee out late in the year. I departed 2021 clutching a bottle of Arran 21 in my rapidly fattening hands; a big treat to celebrate getting through that year, and a signal of reassurance to my wife that the sight of boxes of whisky arriving would slow dramatically, after this one last celebratory banger.
And slow dramatically it did. I’d started to find my area of whisky and had been a bit more selective in what I was seeking out and buying; mostly though I started opening the horde of stuff I’d been collecting over the course of 2021 whilst keeping myself to a sort of one-in-one-out system (in reality it was more one out, five in). I chased a few things and ruminated on the emergence of new distilleries inwardly, but it was early-March that I found my ears perking up at the mention of Dramface on a vPub, and the rise of an anxiety-riddled “should I or shouldn’t I” inner turbulence. Nervous excitement aside, the chance to unleash my pent-up word butchering and be part of this flowing fabric of fun, was too much to hold back.
As I bashed my proposal to the team into a word document, trying to cloak my rambling with as much smoke and mirrors as possible, I was in a bit of a peat phase - I’d just concluded a month solid of peaty drams and was enjoying it hugely, writing vast swathes of notes with no purpose other than future reference and recollection. And then something strange happened one evening, when I opened a new bottle of Ardnamurchan 07.21:05 expecting it to deliver in the same vein as my peaty compatriots. My recollection was of it being a bonfire beside the sea. But instead I found something entirely different, entirely disconnected to my earlier notes, my memories and my expectations.
It had peat smoke there, a whiff, but the sweet toffee fruitiness was way more forward - the salinity and coastal rock-like signature that we’ve come to know and love in Ardnamurchan whisky, made its presence known in the very first sips. This, I exclaimed to the empty room, is something exciting - it kickstarted my guidance system towards Ardnamurchan proper.
It just so happened to occur at the point of us making the, now yearly, pilgrimage to the Ardnamurchan peninsula, with the in-laws during the Easter holidays. We bide in the same small village of Strontian, up on the same hill overlooking the same valley and watching the world go by over a week of laughs, dozing and meandering walks in the surrounding Scottish splendour. It might be the same each year we go, but as a result it’s a home away from home. I particularly love driving over the Morvern moors to Lochaline, to catch the wee ferry over to Fishnish, on the Isle of Mull. We drive north to Tobermory, walk about for a bit, eat some stuff, buy some books or mugs or chocolates, and then head back again. Every year.
This year, however, I had the extra motive to head further along the coastal road west of Strontian, along the banks of Loch Sunart, and visit the Ardnamurchan distillery - what would become my third experience inside any distillery in my lifetime. The first was in 2012 on the Isle of Skye, the second in February 2021, and this one in 2022. My time there would be transformative in a way that most people, who have been to a distillery that makes whisky they love, will testify to - it cemented my adoration for Ardnamurchan whisky. By this point I was actively writing for Dramface, and I wrote about my experience there in The Ardnamurchan Way.
After returning from our holibags my attitude to whisky also transformed. My indiscriminate buying through the relentless casting of my fraying whisky net, was ceased with immediate effect, and the net was gathered in with haste; I would be fishing with a laser-guided rod now, and only use very specific types of bait. That’s not to say that I suddenly bought only Ardnamurchan whisky, but I certainly stopped investigation through buying untested full bottles - things like sherry bombs of GlenAllachie and Edradour, as well as the outliers like The Deveron; my magnifying glass was dusted off to try and separate the “possibly” whiskies from the “definitely” whiskies, through distillery, cask types, ages and ABV’s. By September, and through no small task of opening 98% of my bottle stash, I’d decided that Ardnamurchan whisky was squarely in my wheelhouse. I had an idea then of what I know for sure now: I wanted to try as many expressions of Ardnamurchan spirit as I possibly can.
We are said to be living in the golden age of whisky and I’ll suggest my thoughts as to why I feel this to be true in a second. Before that I want to once again remind myself of why I held onto this knotted ball of FOMOOOD (Fear of missing out on old drams) for so long in the first place - whisky is, to the newcomer, a challenging place to integrate, despite its exceptionally social construct. There are many whisky exciters in the world, each with their own etymologies, and by the time you get past the gateway drams and down into the knowledge rich soil of whiskyville, the people surrounding you are often comprised of veteran whiskyfolk with huge banks of experience under their belts. It’s the most fantastic place to exist, quietly leaching the anecdotes and opinions from these people and gathering some big intel of what it all means in the contemporary frame of being a whisky exciter. But with this exposure also comes the difficult task of subliminally wanting to possess this comprehensive knowledge, whilst not being able to easily acquire the whisky of yesteryear. Certainly not without risking marriages or mortgages.
There also seems to be a dismaying response to many declarations of interesting contemporary whisky, that has bothered me for a long while, enough to write about it, and more than enough to whine about it: “Yeah, but whisky isn't what it once was.” I’d like to propose a standard response: “Go piss on someone else's parade”.
The bemoaning of halcyon days long lost to sunsetting skies is such a drag, I’m so sorry to say. It’s almost reaching the same irksome level as “Blended whisky is pish”. It’s the equivalent of mentioning that you love, love, love music, and then having someone shush all your observations and experiences by announcing that it’s not actually music that you’re hearing, but a pale imitation of what music used to be. You might like the electrified melodic beats of Apparat, but music was better when Elvis was thrusting his shrink-wrapped worldly wares about on stage dressed in a white silk jumpsuit, holding an unlit twelve inch cuban cigar between his bejewelled sausage fingers, as teenage girls wept at the sight of a tightly tailored totem to feverish, greasy machismo. Beastly.
Or another way to say it - you’ve flown across the Atlantic in economy class for the very first time and it was an incredible experience - big smiles and genuine thrill despite the tiredness and cramp in your calves; then being told that your experience is nothing - try flying it in Concorde. Nothing dampens the spirits of a new whisky exciter quicker than an auld whisky exciter mentioning that you are getting excited about the subs bench, and we can only live in the now, with what we have access to in this modern day of whisky, as well as what we can afford. Getting fractious because Ralfy has unfathomable stuff in his stash that we can but dream about, and likely multiples thereof, is a bit of a waste of energy. I know because I was one of those folk. But all that aside, and with a promise to bore off from this tiresome whine masking jealousy once and for all: it is my opinion that the landscape of new whisky right now is a far more worthy pursuit to get one’s teeth firmly planted.
Think about this: when in any of our lifetimes will we have the chance to not only taste the first spirit coming from stills freshly shaped by coppersmiths, but spectate in real-time as those stills, and the distilleries within which they reside, grow older, more mature and produce more incredible whisky? You might wonder how great it would be to taste the early whisky produced from Lagavulin in 1816? Well fear not my fellow whisky exciter, for you can taste the early whisky from Lagg right now. Or Lindores. Or Raasay. Or Annandale, Ardnahoe, Glasgow, Kingsbarns, Torabhaig and yes, Ardnamurchan.
We are in a prime position to experience, first hand, what might become the retrospective halcyon days in 3 decade’s time. You and me, right now. One final point, and it’s something Wally reminds us all of when we transgress: the Rosebank or Brora distillate produced and aged for 30+ years in primo casks, bottled in the early 2000s and sold for £25 at your local off-licence when no-one cared, was originally distilled for efficiency's sake. It was the maturation that changed that rough spirit into something unicorn shaped - coal into diamonds. The new producers of whisky in our present are making excellent distillates for excellent distillates sake. And then maturing it in primo casks! Whisky that, at 4 years old, is utterly compelling. What will this spirit be like in 15, 20 years time, once maturation has woven its magical fingers deep into its soul? And the best part of it all is, we’re here to watch (and experience) it happen. How lucky are we?
So yes, I think we definitely have reached our golden age of whisky, and it's this frame of mind that launched me down this one-way treadmill to madness, when I decided that I had to sample as much Ardnamurchan whisky as I possibly could. I reasoned that, by getting my teeth firmly into this distillery at the point at which, in the long trajectory of whisky history very few get to, then I’ll have a bank of knowledge, familiarity and hands-on experience of this place by the time it comes to the big numbers arriving - 10yo, 15yo and eventually 20yo whisky. I’ll have a direct connection that will almost run alongside my maturation. Why Ardnamurchan though, and not Raasay or Daftmill or Lochlea?
There’s a few reasons - the most important of which is that for whatever reason, the face to which I’ve been bestowed accepts Ardnamurchan currency with an extra level of delight. The pricing and availability of their whisky has a lot to do with it too; reasonable and accessible, for me. Also, like I mentioned, once you’ve visited a place and spoken to the people producing and representing the whisky that resonates so well with your whisky preferences, it’s almost like their talons grip your soul, never to be released. The whisky takes on a lot more significance, knowing where it’s made and who makes it - more so that I also have an abject love for the Lochaber region. I sincerely hope that Ardnamurchan whisky won’t go the way of Macallan, and sell their souls to the profiteers, but seeing the way they conduct themselves, and observing the genuine love for what they do and how they do it, I very much doubt that will happen…
My approach for this behemoth quest has been to try and gather all of their core range bottlings, and at least one of their pre-whisky “Spirit” drinks, so that I can gauge the overall transition over a longer period of time with incrementally more maturing stocks. I won’t have to rely on hearsay or dribbles from long-gone bottlings, because I can still get full bottles, unopened and ready to be experienced anew with very little (relative) outlay. I’ve tried to pepper that core line-up with as many single cask expressions as I can afford, to try and get more direct experience with how the spirit responds to individual cask types, and I’ve massaged anyone who blinks at me to part with as many other samples as they can, of things I can’t reach. My method of getting most of these bottlings has been through auctions, and despite their leverage for the bad side of whisky prospecting, auctions also allow folk like me, on quests laced with patience, to snag bottles of whisky vastly under RRP. You’ll see in a moment some of the deals I’ve managed to get in my quest, but despite my patience, there’s also been full price punches landed, mostly in the single cask stuff - some things just hold their price too well, and my patience has boundaries.
Over the course of a year I have managed to gather 15 bottles of Ardnamurchan whisky, all now opened and all enjoyed to varying levels, assessed and considered, as well as many wee samples of other interesting things. Despite my multiple attempts and patience, I’ve not managed to get a hold of the inaugural 09.20:01 bottling. It’s the last stop on my journey that, as of this article, hasn’t materialised. I will get it though, and I will follow up with a review on that bottling alone. Till then, here’s my take on Ardnamurchan whisky, from the first tentative pre-whisky steps, all the way through their core range releases and onwards, to a very special bottling for a very special reason. Hold on tight, for it’s about to turn into a proper borefest.
Let Us Begin…
Review 1/15
Ardnamurchan Spirit 2018/AD Release #3, 55.3% ABV
Price at launch £60
£52 paid at auction
This is the third of four releases before Ardnamurchan’s spirit became legally Whisky. This one is 2 - 2.5 year old spirit and is composed of a whole smorgasbord of American oak and Spanish oak, both peated and unpeated spirits, and all ex-Oloroso and PX casks of differing sizes.
Nose
Fresh sweet lemons and citrus. Hint of liquorice. Oven chips. Christmas spices. Cloves. Treacle. Woody spice, oak. Big peppery wood. Highland toffee. Rocket salad. Campbeltown funk! Malty holyfuckballs - like standing in the distillery. Pears. Farmy. New make. Sour cream. Digestives. Ready salted crisps. Spearmint.
Palate
Bright apples and orchard fruits. Spices. Cloves and cinnamon. Cedar wood. Toffee, wood, gymhall. Malty and astoundingly delicious.
The Dregs
As a stand alone spirit/whisky, this is incredibly tasty stuff. It’s almost hard to tell it’s very young, such is the masking of that new-make signature through the use of the Oloroso and PX casks. If I’d tried this in 2018 I’d be even more insufferable about Ardnamurchan than I am currently - what a proposition this must’ve been for whisky exciters back then.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 2/15
Ardnamurchan AD/01.21:01, Second Release, 46.8% ABV
Price at launch £45
£31 paid at auction
This is their second release of official whisky, yet going by their bottling code, this is a January 2021 release and their first release (01). Yet we know that the inaugural bottling was 09.20:01, so not sure what’s going on there.
[First of 2021? Ed.]
Nose
Smokey and salty. Rubbing alcohol. Mineralic. Wax candle. Stick of chalk. Brick paints. Permanent marker.
Palate
Bright, yet silky sweet - school brick paints say hello and wave goodbye. Foam bananas covered in chilli milk chocolate. Farmyards and the inside of a malteser. Still, a bit of apple tart and very ripe pear, perhaps.
The Dregs
So this bottling has a more pronounced new-make feel than the 2018/AD. It’s brighter, more painty, smokey and salty. Very interesting!
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 3/15
Ardnamurchan AD/04.21:03, Third Release, 46.8% ABV
Price at launch £45
£35 paid at auction
The third out the gate. It’s sort of indicative of the thrill and excitement around Ardnamurchan that they released this so soon after January’s batch of nearly 16,000 bottles. This outturn is a little more, at 17,500 or thereabouts, so things are getting going great guns now.
Nose
Still a bit of new-make kicking about. Light farmy. Cedar wood. Tobacco on the finish. Demerara sugar in a tupperware. Wet rocky stream. Earthy.
Palate
Fried banana. Maple syrup. Oak smoked bacon encased in that maple syrup. Maillard reaction. Cherry and strawberry boiled sweets. Faint orange sweetie, maybe even a Fruit Salad. Still that farmy, new-makey distillery distilling note sits behind it all.
The Dregs
Not as potently chemically, but has many crossovers with the preceding release. A bit more earthy, a bit more sweet, a bit more interesting as a result. The spirit leads still, at this point - casks haven’t started to shout, perhaps? My uneducated opinion.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 4/15
Ardnamurchan AD/07.21:05, Fifth Release, 46.8% ABV
Price at launch £45
I bought this in mid-2021. A backup to a bottle I already rinsed and the most peated dram I’d tried at that point. I left this backup bottle untouched until earlier this year, and it was the one opened after my peat phase that made me understand what Ardnamurchan whisky actually is, in the grand scheme of my whisky journey.
Nose
Smokey, salty. A bit more sweetness present - red sweetness. Slight match striker. Oil paints. Orange side of a sherbet “Double Dip”. Still that note of distillery (new-make?) in there. Barley, wort, wash, whatever.
Palate
Very light painted railing - oil based paint. Enamel paints (airfix). There’s a sweetness but it’s a chemical sweetness - not bad, very good. Light orange zest. Malty kicker. Draff on the wind.
The Dregs
As we go along the releases the comparisons become harder to differentiate - it’s mostly extreme nuances of smell and taste that I’m finding now. Exceptional flavour profile though, and impressive consistency of product. Certainly feels more cohesive and less chemically, which makes sense given the cask is starting to get involved.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 5/15
Ardnamurchan AD/10.21:06, Sixth Release, 46.8% ABV
Price at launch £45
This was another backup, having rinsed the 07.21 and realised how interesting it was. The first bottle was me getting into Ardnamurchan as a peaty dram, and despite being very close to the 07.21, had subtle differences visible to me in my then state of fresh whisky exciter. Now?
Nose
Natural yoghurt. Distant sweet cherry. Cinnamon. Empty mint packet - paper and foil. Dusty wood cabinet with old records inside.
Palate
Minty slightly medicinal plaster. Red fruits are there but subdued. Sharper finish, dark chocolate and hints of marzipan. Cinnamon.
The Dregs
The minty aspect of this one is surprising but not unwelcome - it feels freshly coastal, yet with nuances of sharpness, sourness and sweetness wasping about. So, so consistent with the previous few batches.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 6/15
Ardnamurchan AD/02.22, Cask Strength, First Release, 58.7% ABV
Price at launch £65
I collected this bottle from the Ardnamurchan Distillery shop as I departed the peninsula following our Easter break. This was number 18 of their outturn, and was one of two I snaffled on the way home. The other I found in the nearby Salen Jetty Shop, and the owner was mystified how I came to know that the bottle, placed on his shelf earlier that day, was there. It’s not what you know, but who you speak to on the way out the Ardnamurchan shoppe…
The first of Ardnamurchan’s core range, cask strength bottlings. To my knowledge, this set the whisky exciter world alight, with the incredibly visceral presentation, deep, resonant flavours and the more than fair price point of £65.
Nose
Foam bananas. Pineapple. Coconut, liquorice, biscoff, mineral, toffee pudding, salted caramel sauce, heathery, honey, porridge, match striker.
Palate
Nail polish. Chalky sweet sauce, biscoff, salted caramel, a lot more peated signature after half-a-bottle. Bold, powerful. Incredibly moreish, it slips down the facepipe without fuss. Ardnamurchan signature amplified yet really balanced, the young spirit melding perfectly with ABV and that heavily biassed peated to unpeated cask ratio.
The Dregs
I made it through the first bottle within a calendar month of opening it. It’s just incredibly tasty, eminently drinkable whisky. Like the core range but amplified. Given it’s supposed to be a peated dram, the peat is very well tamed, not an overtly smoky dram at all. Magic at work.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 7/15
Ardnamurchan AD/04.22, Core Release, 46.8% ABV
Price at launch £45
I remember being so fed up with chasing the Paul Launois that this wee bottling became almost a consolation prize. What a disaster that would’ve been, because it’s superb whisky, and it was another proper shift in my attitude to chasing whisky. What will be will be. Reviewed at length here.
Nose
Dusty. Citrus. Lime chocolates. Orange cream chocolates. Scotch tape. Salty spice. Natural yoghurt. Distant sweet cherry. Cinnamon. (Review notes)
Almost veering into the gorse. Coconut, planty. Oil paints mixed with school brick paints. Cheap fan heater that you’ve just turned on - burny dust. (Additional notes)
Palate
Kiwi fruit. Delicate sharpness - grapefruit. Sweet smoke. Honey, toffee, caster sugar in Tupperware. Heathery chocolate. Salted caramel. Hint of match strike paper. Creosote whiff. (Review Notes)
A lot more integrated - lashings of toffee, cedar wood, oak, fudge and salted caramel. There’s similarities with all of the preceding core ranges, yet this one feels the most resolved. Stable, if you will. (Additional Notes)
The Dregs
The second to latest whisky (at publication) and so resoundingly steady. This is the stuff that made me excited for Ardnamurchan’s future - the meat and potatoes whisky that’s delivering robust delicious flavours, is widely available and, in my opinion, fantastic value.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 8/15
Ardnamurchan AD/06.22, Paul Launois Release, 57.5% ABV
Price at launch £65
The one I chased. The one that got away. Until a very connected, highly generous whisky pal found one for me (utterly fed up with listening to me whining about it, no doubt). I spoke quite recently about this, in the contribution to Tyree’s review, so I’ll not spend too long ruminating on this one, only to say that the further I’ve got down the bottle, the more magnificent it has become. It’s bright, sharp and beautiful. I’m glad my moaning paid off…
Nose
Boldly bright red fruity - cherry and strawberry. Match striker. Soy sauce and umami vegetal notes - spring onions. Acetone. Airfix glue / superglue.
Palate
Cedar wood burst followed by a dissipating bright cherry chupa chups. Oaky, malty. Timber yard. Snuffed match. Pine box. Chocolate limes. Yeasty, savoury. Bright edge throughout. Liquid toffee ribbons. Fading boiled sweetie.
The Dregs
A fantastic variation of an Ardnamurchan theme. This is sharp, bright, edgy and astoundingly good. I love the extra sharpness brought by the Paul Launois champagne casks, and I love the developing flavour profile as the dram airs and warms in the hand, delivering layers upon layers of toffee, under ripe fruits green and red, and an overall sentiment of confidence in the spirit’s potential regardless of cask.
Water brings out the sharpness a tad.
Score: 8/10 “Something special.” DC
Review 9/15
Ardnamurchan AD/09.22, Cask Strength, Second Release, 58.4% ABV
Price at launch £65
Jumping on this like a shark jumps on a trampoline, I swiftly flew down and snaffled this the evening before it was widely available, from Robbies Drams. At this phase I was fully committed to everything and anything Ardnamurchan, and despite this bottle being incredibly good, I’ve been buying so much Ardnamurchan that it’s still half-full. An idea of how many other whiskies I’ve been enjoying.
Nose
Oven chips in the nuclear bunker. Minty field spreading. Sweet silage. Hay fields. Fresh minerals and wet dog!
Palate
Sunflower oil. Salty chips. Chorizo smoking in a pan! Sweet caramel. Charred Oak pellets. Chili oil heat. Minty. Fleeting plasticine. Plasticy. A lot more peaty presence on the palate than the nose, bringing it up the rear. Earthy sweetness. Summer fields.
The Dregs
Continues the fantastic foundation of Ardnamurchan cask strength bottlings laid upon us with the 02.22, and I think this one is as good as the first. Three cheers to the continued line of cask strength - I can’t stop myself going through it like jet fuel going through an Airbus A380 engine.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 10/15
Ardnamurchan AD/12.16 CK.1308, Nickolls & Perks 225th, 58.8% ABV
Price at launch £80
I’ve written of this, and loved it.
Now, many months after, I think it’s still one of the more interesting Ardnamurchan’s I’ve got.
Nose
Oranges, peppery salad, caramac pips. Luscious salted caramel. Fresh linen and some well worn tote bags. Wet tarmac. Cognac-like.
Palate
Oily oranges and light liquorice. Ginger snaps. Reminds me of cognac - or a vastly less saccharine Grand Marnier. Wave of peppery heat, mineralic. Strawberries and cherry compote. Red fruit lollipop. Peppery Spice. Cheese and onion crisps. Match striker. Finish is decently long.
The Dregs
The first dram out of this bottle I was convinced it was an orange liqueur! A good few goes later and the Ardnamurchan character began to show, and as a result became one of my favourite bottlings to date.
Score: 8/10 “Something special.” DC
Review 11/15
Ardnamurchan AD/12.16 CK.1302, Tyndrum Exclusive, 59.2% ABV
Price at launch £87.50
During a Thursday night vPub I was sitting listening to Roy when a direct message to me popped up highlighted in orange - it was a barfly asking me if I’d caught the Tyndrum Exclusive just released. My palms instantly turned sweaty and I swiftly opened a new tab on my computer, bashing unsuccessfully “Tyndrum” into Google. Sure enough, a new single cask release was ready to purchase.
Lucky for me that Hells Widd mentioned, for by 9am the next morning it was all gone. Right place, right people. I didn’t get into the swing of this bottling until a long way down - over half. Only then did it kick into overdrive.
Nose
Coffee. Marmalade on toast. Almonds. Waxed wood. Beeswax. Malty. Fresh washing. Kiwi fruit. Bit of boot polish.
Palate
Hot start. Toasted almonds. Light orange with an oak finish. Huge nuttyness. Star Anise. Bit of liquorice. Cinnamon and a bit of clove. Mandarin cheesecake.
The Dregs
Interesting that this one took me a long while to appreciate it. It was very hot and a bit sour to begin with, from the first dram to around the top of the wee windows on the side of the bottle. Only then did the whisky start to stretch its legs and show what’s what. Very enjoyable, but reasserts my preference towards Ardnamurchan with sherry somewhere in the lineage.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 12/15
Ardnamurchan AD/10.22, Madeira Cask, 58.2% ABV
Price at launch £65
I didn’t chase this, and I didn’t want to chase it. I put facetime in at my local whisky shop over the course of the year and it paid off with a bottle of Madeira being put aside for me. Thank you Steve! I love the burgundy foils on the cap and label - points to the nature of this whisky maybe?
Nose
Massive digestives and oatcakes! Wow. It’s a decadent cracker fest, with grapes and chutneys and chilli jams aplenty. Applewood smoked and that incredibly creamy, nut enrobed-pineapple cream cheese ring that you only ever buy at Christmas. This is insanely powerful and decadent on the nose. Has a woody cheese board whiff. Cranberry Wensleydale. Yep - it’s a digestive cracker/biscuit, lightly buttered, with a slab of cranberry Wensleydale atop and a little drizzle of chilli jam. Be still my beating heart.
Palate
Red fruits ahoy! Big cranberry, big raspberry and loads of other intermingling red coloured fruits - sharp, sweet, citrus. Lashings of figs, raisins and dried fruits. A buttery underpinning and an edge of charred pastry edges.
With water the heat is tamped and the mince pie, Christmas cake sweetness is enhanced. A truly fantastic Christmas dram. Rubbery tennis shoe.
The Dregs
Drummond and Wally reviewed this bottling at length, and I’m in agreement with it all. Sensational stuff from Glenbeg.
Score: 8/10 “Something special.” DC
Review 13/15
Ardnamurchan AD/05.15, CK.181, The Good Spirits Co. (Glasgow) Single Cask, 58.8% ABV
Price at launch £90
The legendary Cask 181. I’d heard about this single cask bottling, given that it’s widely regarded to be one of the best single cask Ardnamurchan so far. I’ll soon see…
Nose
Big orange and lemon feels - lemon tart on buttery pastry. Orange studded clove riddled Christmas ham. Lots of soil, fresh soil. Bit of creosote wood fences in summer from the shady cold vennel. Big pivot to freshly baked pan au chocolat. Oak cakes, chilli jam on poppy seed cracker. Sweet lemon posset. Lemon curd on dark golden toast. New-make is there in fleeting bursts. Peppercorns.
With water- subdued of all the above - keep it at full power I think.
Palate
Orange toffee sauce, bit of heat, bit of more astringent spice - star anise maybe, cloves. Nice whack of lemon curd. Florals - purples and pinks. Nice summery feel. Lemon boiled sweeties.
Water again subdues it, but not necessarily in a bad way. The prickly spiciness is deadened and it allows easier access to the more delicious yellow fruity notes, dusted in icing sugar and served beside a warm cinnamon bun. Superb.
The Dregs
This is very similar to the Tyndrum Exclusive - it’s almost the same cask, with the Tyndrum being a first-fill American oak cask, and this one being a refill, I assume? Graeme Mackay (Sales Exec for Adelphi) confirms it’s also a first-fill for full maturation, through the AD/Venturer’s club page. Different strokes for different folks.
Despite the similarities to the newer released single cask for the Green Welly Stop’s megahouse of whisky, this Good Spirit Co’s take is a bit more viscous, more immediately luxurious lemon meringue pie. I filled my hipflask with it for our Christmas Eve walk, to tire the wee one before the big day, and, warming by my pocketed hand the whisky slipped down the throat like a silk ribbon, leaving trails of delicious orchard, tropical and spiced fruit in its wake. A gem of a whisky. No wonder it’s already Ardnamurchan lore.
Score: 8/10 “Something special.” DC
Review 14/15
Ardnamurchan AD/ Warehouse Release, 6yo Hand-fill, PX-Cask 790R, 61.8% ABV
Price at launch £70
A wee PX octave that was let loose in the shop for punters to fill themselves. Knowing I wouldn’t get up there anytime soon, and that it was a good chance to try something supercharged direct from a wee octave cask, I asked the same whiskypal that found me the Launois to fill me one, if he didn’t mind, when he was up there filling his own cask of Ardnamurchan whisky. Of course he didn’t mind, because he’s one of the nicest, most enthusiastic whisky exciters out there.
This is 6 years old Ardnamurchan whisky matured exclusively in a PX Octave #790R at a not inconsequential 61.8% ABV. Rocketships await, I expect.
Nose
Decadent and bold. Big brown bag of beautiful boiling rummy caramel. And yet the Ardnamurchan signature present in every core range, every single cask and every special, underpins it all, even at nearly 62%!
Raisins coated in sherry. Vague farmyard, sweet and silagey. Toasted marshmallows. Orchard fruits - very delicious red apple and figs. Cinnamon and carrot cake, gingerbread and oat biscuits with caramelised raisins embedded.
With water it’s opening up the youthfulness a tad more - crystal sugary farms.
Palate
At cask strength it’s overwhelming and hot. The silage new-make note is hard to miss, but it’s flanked by such powerful brown sugary, raisin filled caramel that it combines to form a potent, often indescribable flavour density.
With water the liquid cedar wood and oak toffee amps up bigly. Super sweet, woody, spicy, viscous and mouth filling. Christmas pudding with brandy butter springs to mind. Bread and butter pudding too, with little chocolatey nibs thrown in for excitement.
The Dregs
It’s fantastic whisky, albeit with the youthful character winning the day - I love this note so it’s right up my street. It’s the flavour of the smell of walking around the distillery as things are being distilled - malty, earthy, farmy, densely savoury and yum-yum sweet.
Score: 7/10 “Very good indeed.” DC
Review 15/15
Little Brown Dog, Banksy Bottling, 6yo, 61.1% ABV
Price at launch £85
I thought I had my line-up sorted (and my Christmas Day bottle opener) until this wee thing appeared. I’d shrugged off the Cadenhead’s bottling of Ardnamurchan 6 year old whisky, because I was done buying whisky for the year. I’d completed my Ardna shelf ready for this review, and that was fine. I’d passed on a few other bottlings too, of non-Ardnamurchan whisky. 2022 was complete.
Then I saw this tantalising prospect appear. Yet, still my wits remained intact. No sir. Not for me. I’m done, you see? Christmas is sorted with the Good Spirits single cask, say thank-ya. Then Wally messaged me, asking if I’d heard there was a LBD bottling of Ardna released that day. I tried my best to reason, using cost as my angle. It was no good. My last bottle purchase of 2022 would instead be this bottling of Peated Refill Sherry, delivered at another warp speed ABV.
This is a bit of a weeper, and I’m no dog person, but independent bottler Little Brown Dog Spirits Ltd was named after a little brown dog called Banksy - his silhouette etched on every LBD bottling ever produced. 2022 was to be the last year that Bansky would roam this stricken Earth.
As a celebration of that wee four-legged furry pal’s legacy, the folks at LBD bottled this single cask of Ardnamurchan 6 year old spirit - casked in refill sherry and darker than any other Ardnamurchan I think I’ve seen - it’s proper dark. I messaged LBD to ask why, and they said that it was simply a fantastically active cask, and that Ardnamurchan probably shouldn’t have let go of it. So much the better for LBD, and so much the better for us!
LBD have always bottled in 50cl and thus, as a strange rule I formed through being a visual guy and not capable of rational thinking, discounted their products. 50cl of whisky at £80 seems to me just a bad deal, regardless of whether that whisky at 70cl would have cost me £120. I didn’t, and probably still don’t, see it like that. I think I’m being short-changed in some way when other bottles of 70cl single cask whisky can be had for £60-90. Or maybe I just think I need that extra 200ml to make my life complete. Who knows, but anyway, LBD bottled this Banksy tribute in a brand new 70cl bottling and asked £85 for it - Wally deviously pitched into our little chat “don’t Ardna often command £90 for their own single cask bottlings?” I was powerless to resist.
Having purchased it and taken some snaps, the feedback I got through Instahoot was reassurance, more than anything else, about LBD’s quality. That this bottling would be amazing for the simple reason that LBD doesn't do bad casks. They don’t release bad whisky. Even Connal, of Ardna fame, messaged to say it’s a banger. It’s time for the mouth to meet the trousers.
Nose
Big peaty opening. Fireside hobnobs. Salty earth. Caramelised sugary nuts from a fairground. Fried green beans. Cranberry dipped, slightly charred pigs in blankets. Spiced cinnamon cream crackers. Clove studded, orange drizzled, cola baked ham. Hairspray and jelly beans. Plasticine and toasted almonds.
After 5ml water - peat retreats. A lot more wood appears - sauna cedar mostly. Desiccated coconut over chocolatey marshmallows STOP IT. Carrot cake with extra ginger in the batter. Stroopwafel melting. It almost resembles a Speyside in nose, before swinging back to smokey synthetic strawberry ice cream sauce. Very smallest hint of lime zest inside a buttery biscuit base.
Palate
Big big big. Shocking burn of sweet delicious heat, dissipating to a medium simmer of sweet spiced pork pie and the inside of an unused plastic petrol can. Few droplets of water make this a hint more smoky. Petrichor, coal bucket. Slightly souring finish.
Add a big whack (5ml) of water to see if I can tame this fiery spirit. Gone is the heat. In its place utterly compelling flavour - delicious licks of fudgey cream with little pips of peaty smoke, suddenly accompanied by the salty, coastal Ardna spirit.
The Dregs
A snapshot into what’s possible with active casks and incredibly good distillate. This is 6 years old and bottled at exocet missile ABV, and it does assert this immediately with a wall of heat, flavour and smoke. Spend a good bit of time with it, and add in some big licks of cooling water and the whisky shines like a liquid sunset.
I wanted to give this a 9 and had it down as such, but post-Christmas I’m thinking back to the other 8’s that I’ve awarded - the Benromach Abbey, the Bimber Oloroso and the Ardna Nickolls, and I think this easily as enjoyable, if a smidge more visceral, just through the whack of ABV. I also think festive frivolity was leaning me into being overly generous - this is cracking whisky but looking at the scoring system this doesn’t strike me as exceptional.
Remarkably tasty and fantastically prescient on LBD’s behalf, launching this just before Christmas, but exceptional? Did I sit back, stunned at how such a thing can be allowed to exist and the value it offers at £90? Unfortunately not - I’ve not had a whisky stop me in my tracks yet. I’ve had loads of “wow’s” and a few “fuckinels” but nothing transcendent, yet.
An 8, therefore, it is.
Score: 8/10 “Something special.” DC
The Final Dregs
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Too late for that, if you made it here; thanks to you and well done, now you know.
Alongside these 15 whiskies, I’ve been trying multiple samples too of varying sizes - 30ml, 50ml and 100ml, depending on what it is and who it was from. A 2019/AD allowed me to see the year following on from my bottle of 2018/AD . A sample of the AD/10:15 CK.684 peated dram bottled exclusively for the Ardnamurchan club “AD/Venturers” - thank you Alex. Differing wee samples from the ladies at The Grail Whisky, including a taste of that elusive, iconic, taste-changing “Ardnagherkin”. I even opened my own samples of my CK.339 that I decanted last Christmas to celebrate the big day. So much whisky to try, and with so many variants, it’s a wonder I was able to get anything compiled.
Yet, it was remarkably easy because of multiple unavoidable truths.
The first is that Ardnamurchan whisky is great.
The second is that Ardnamurchan Distillery is one of the leading lights in the new age of whisky transparency - I was able to see the cask makeup of all the core range bottlings, casks strength bottlings, single casks and specials besides, because each bottle comes with a scannable QR code leading me directly to every bit of information I could ever need to know. Questions like “what casks made up this batch of 07.21:05?” are simple to answer - I click the link that my phone camera manifests on the bottle, and it tells me.
The third is Ardnamurchan people - the folk at the distillery, out in the world spreading the word, and online via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. They’re only too happy to chat, and answer questions. People with names and faces. People with understanding of each process inside that distillery to such a degree that, if pushed on anything - from their bio-fuel source to the hazardous lighting certifications inside the still room - can answer with ease and authority.
But the biggest truth, the one that amazes, is that of constancy.
Ardnamurchan Distillery’s confidence in their ability to release core range whiskies that are remarkably close to the previous batch, and thus entirely dependable for those coming new to Ardnamurchan whisky, or even folk like me who drink their whisky at a rate that replenishment is a requirement every 2-3 months, is really impressive. Going by the pictures and whatnot on socials, the Ardnamurchan whisky is blended by the team, rather than a sole master blender - maybe that’s why? I haven’t yet picked up their latest AD/ core range bottle, in their updated and fantastic looking new bottle design, but I know without a doubt that when I do buy it (likely in the new year) it’ll be whisky I’ll love as much as all the other core range bottlings because it’s an iteration, not a revelation - they have their style and they’re sticking to each magnificent drop of it.
Constancy of whisky then, but more than that, constancy of message, drive, pursuit and trajectory. New distilleries are being built all the time, and of those who are now releasing legally certified whisky, no other place does it with such anchoring in the world, than Ardnamurchan. I won’t doss on any other distillery because that isn’t fair, but I look at Ardnamurchan and I see a team of people who stand completely harmonised and resonant to what Ardnamurchan whisky is and where they want to go - it feels, for want of a better term - like a family. There’s no dissonance, no weird curveballs, corporate needling or unfortunate mis-steps, yet. Every release has been thoroughly thought through, with a very big emphasis on quality - of whisky aye, but also that the product itself has quality throughout. A nice example is the choice to delay the release of their 02.22 Cask Strength bottling by a month or so, because the labels that had arrived featured a detail that the team deemed to be just a little bit too obscure. The UV spot varnishing that covered the lighthouse motif wasn’t working properly - a detail not many would even give two blinks at, but it had to be perfect. That is commitment - to us as whisky exciters, but to their brand and marketplace cohesion.
Why does all that matter, though? UV spot ink on a label - calm yer jets Doog, it’s just whisky. Drink it, like it or don’t.
It matters because it’s the little things that burst you. Little things that turn what was a bit of a bummer, into a bonafide showstopper. Integrity is honesty and independence, as well as transparency in a distillery’s case. Every step of the way Ardnamurchan have shown themselves to be honest in their whisky, their language and their presence. There’s nothing hidden. Independence is a huge thing in whisky land, and Ardnamurchan are forging their own path of excellence - independence of spirit and independence of place, too. Their distillery is situated in the middle of nowhere, not because they wanted to be awkward, but because that’s where it allows them to run the distillery as efficiently, cost effectively and with as little impact on the world as possible. Renewables. Recycling. Repurposing of by-products. It all happens local to Glenbeg, and will continue to happen for as long as the trees grow, the rivers run and the cattle eat. Does this contribute to lower overheads and as a result, lower pricepoints? Quite possibly.
Integrity: something that takes a long time to establish. It’s pushing on 9 years since Ardnamurchan first started distilling their spirit. I have, lined up on the illuminated supershelf, almost every moment that they’ve chosen to release their matured core whisky into the world - the point at which they said “this is good enough for us”. I might be one of the newest to whisky when I stand alongside my fellow Dramface team, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating this distillery for everything that they have achieved: a genuinely passionate team, honesty and transparency of product and place, and flavourful, engaging whisky released each time to fervent celebration from whisky exciters. If it’s good enough for Ardnamurchan, then it is good enough for me. As an overall experience then, this dive into the world of Ardnamurchan whisky is a firm 9/10.
What a great year. I didn’t think I’d be closing out 2022 for Dramface when I first tapped those tentative words to Wally and Dallas in April, and I certainly didn’t, or couldn’t have, believed where I’d be in my whisky journey come December 31st. I’ve met some fantastic people this year. I’ve drank some fantastic whisky, in some utterly magical places. 2023 will be Doog’s year of festivals, so I’m hoping to meet a lot of you supporting us here in Dramface real–proper, at one of the festivals or other events.
So, long days and pleasant nights to you all, whisky gunslingers. Happy New Year and the very best for 2023. Slàinte Mhath. Drink responsibly, drink selectively and above all, drink to the magnificence of Uisge Beatha and all that it brings to us mere mortals, regardless of what we’re seeking.
My humble thanks to Wally, Dallas, Hamish and all my fellow Dramface team, especially the editorial heroes for enduring auld Doog and his ramblings, but for supporting each other and making this community such an honour to be a small part of.
DC/31.12:22
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