Ardbeg 10 Year: A Celebration

 

This brief post isn't really a review. It's just a general celebration of a great bottle of whisky - Ardbeg's vaunted 10 Year expression. 

What a great, timeless whisky this is. It remains generally affordable (although it's gone up about $10-20 in Washington DC over the last 10 years...) and the quality remains very high. Bottled with a consistent age statement, and at a pleasingly decent 46% ABV, it's just packed full of flavor from the moment you uncork the bottle to the very last dregs. 

This is the very archetype of the Islay style: full of rich peat and smoke, medicinal iodine, coastal salinity (seaweed, seashells, brine, sand), lime peel, a minty herbal aspect, and a distinct buttery vanilla sweetness, oily yet silky, and surprisingly light in texture, this bottle is like an old friend. Whenever I happen across this for a decent price, it's almost an automatic buy. A paragon of its kind. 

There is a lot of side-eye cast toward the yearly special offerings from Ardbeg, mostly because the price is out of all proportion to the NAS whiskies they release. I've had almost every release since 2011's Alligator (missing only 2012's Day), and I admit that they are not often worth the $150+ price tag that is affixed to them. But this basic bottle of 10 Year always, always gets the job done with style and substance for a price that rarely stretches the wallet. 

As far as the regular core bottlings go: as much as I love Corryvreckan (despite the No Age Statement, but given the cask strength and absolute blast of flavors it brings to the table, it's probably the dollar-for-dollar best buy in Islay scotch right now, narrowly edging out the Laphroaig 10 Year Cask Strength), Uigeadail (which I think has degraded a bit over the years), An Oa and Wee Beastie, the 10 Year expression remains my go-to when I just want a solid Islay dram that will satisfy. 

I know that Laphroaig and Lagavulin have their die hard peathead fanatics - and I credit them fully - and some might prefer Kilhoman's Machir Bay or Bruichladdich's Port Charlotte expressions, or even Caol Ila's endless independent bottlings or perhaps the gentler 12 Year Bowmore; but Ardbeg remains my favorite. Tonight I raise my glass to this great pantheon-level whisky.