Anyone who has read through this blog over the last year or two knows I'm a big fan of Ardmore, a somewhat chameleon-esque distillery in the eastern Highlands of Scotland. Capable of making all kinds of wild, vivid flavors, I buy almost every single cask offering that's released by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS").
This bottle, very young at 7 years old (all in a first-fill bourbon barrel), should be pretty intriguing. Here are the official notes:
The nose evoked a campfire – toasted marshmallows, bacon crisps, green olives with lemon and thyme. The neat palate was a sudden firing up of our internal combustion engines – salty olives, pickled ginger and jalapenos, chocolate limes, tarry smoke, coal-tar soap and chewing willow twigs. The reduced nose was quite fresh – cucumber raita, Glacier mints, lime juice on mango, salty feta and honeyed baklava - somewhere between waves crashing on the shore and an old-fashioned steamie. The palate became sweeter and fruitier but retained an enjoyable, gentle astringency – lemon zest and gorse, with leather, walnuts and coffee grounds on the finish.
This has all the hallmarks of something I'm going to love: marshmallow and bacon, lemon and thyme. Olives (peated Ardmore is often very briny) in spades. Coal-tar soap! Willow twigs! But perhaps nothing interests me more than the combination of "salty feta" with "honeyed baklava."
Nicknamed "An Engine Starter for Cold Mornings," and bottled at a hefty 61.3% ABV, let's see how this bottle stacks against the other young Ardmores I've had:
Nose: An unusual sweet-and-sour nose. Sour lemon and coastal sea brine, but sweet barley sugars and pineapple - along with some bacon, some olives. Very unusual push-and-pull on the nose here.
With water, everything changes for the better. All the unruly scents are calmed down: that "cucumber raita" note in the official notes is weirdly accurate. Cucumber and yogurt, with lemon acids to cut the yogurt. Soft lime peel... feta cheese (!!)... the nose is more interesting and more savory with water. This works much better without the sweetness, and the water cuts down on the sweetness considerably.
Mouthfeel: Medium, oily.
Palate: Departs from the nose - some alcohol burn, and a generally more savory with a distinctly sweet development. This is a difficult one to describe - smoked ham and black olives on pizza? Malted barley? Ginger and hot peppers, perhaps.
With water, it is generally more integrated. Some bleu cheese aspects remain, along with coffee grounds and pickled ginger. Lemon peel. Interesting, strange, briny.
Finish: Smoky. Wood smoke, brine, and pepper on the finish. A residual sweetness, but subtle.
Verdict: This really needs water to calm it down. Perhaps not the very best Ardmore I've had, it's still a worthy contender in the "wow is this fascinating" category of Scotch. Which is quite a good thing, all in all. No one would mistake this dram for Glenlivet, that's for damned sure.
This is another of those strange Highland whiskies, along with Glenturret and anCnoc, that is smoky and offbeat and has a lot of unusual angles to it. My favorite Ardmore is still "Mesmerizing and Entertaining," (SMWS 66.165), which tasted *exactly* like eating freshly shucked oysters. All these young Ardmores are pretty wild, filled with unusual flavor - I recommend them all for adventure-seekers!
This is roughly on a par with the other 7 Year Ardmore single cask offerings I've had. At $100 for a bottle of 7 year peated Scotch, at natural strength, I would generally say it's worth the value. But it's certainly not for everyone. It's bright and sour and savory and smoky in turns, and definitely meant to be sipped on a cold night while thinking about your mortality... while contemplating the lifespan of shellfish. You've been warned.
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