Ardmore Traditional Cask (NAS) Second Take

 

There are few people on earth with a love of Ardmore as pure as I have, hahaha. I'm not even really kidding, either. I discovered Ardmore through their now discontinued Traditional Cask bottling, and was so impressed that I have been seeking out their independent bottles ever since. And, as luck would have it, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS"), to which I belong, happens to have good access to casks of Ardmore, and releases bottles pretty regularly, so I've had a wide variety of their spirit. 

What luck, then, that tonight - after 8 years! - I happened across a bottle of that long-discontinued Traditional Cask. I have been thinking about it for years now - and it's virtually impossible to find one of the official bottles they supposedly have on the market these days.

Ardmore is owned by Beam Suntory, which also owns Bowmore, Laphroaig, and Auchentoshan as far as scotch distilleries. Almost all of Ardmore is funneled into Teacher's Highland Cream, a well-known and well-regarded blend - in fact, Ardmore was built by Adam Teacher himself, on land in Aberdeenshire around 1897-1898. 

Interestingly, Ardmore has apparently always been barrier-filtered and not chill-filtered - rather uncommon in the industry, although many distilleries are finally, slowly moving away from chill filtering. Ardmore *did* attempt chill-filtration once - in 2014, when they discontinued the Traditional Cask and tried a Bowmore-like move to 40% in their very short-lived Ardmore Legacy bottle, which I never once saw in the wild. 

These days, Ardmore supposedly has three bottlings on the shelves: Ardmore Tradition, Ardmore Triple Wood, and Ardmore Port Wood. Despite loving this distillery half to death, I have never once encountered any of them in the wild, anywhere, or even heard of them on reddit or other whisky review sites. Maybe it's UK only? Who knows.

Here is an *excellent* overview of Ardmore and its history. 

So this Ardmore Traditional Cask bottle dates to 2014 or earlier - it carries no age statement, which means "young," but they have tried to offset the youth by finishing it in quarter casks, which imparts more wood influence than normal because of the high liquid-to-surface ratio. Beam Suntory tried the same trick with Laphroaig Quarter Cask, which turned out well. Bottled at 46% ABV, no chill filtration, and peated. Coloration unknown. And, being an 8 year old bottle: the cork is dead:

Let's take an eight year journey into the past:

Nose: Classic Highland nose here - sour apple, leathery, savory, smoky, earthy. I get a faint malty backbone at the bottom of everything, but at the top I get cider apple, fleshy pear, young leather, salted smoke, peat, vanilla, and honey. After sitting a bit, I get earthier notes - moss and leaves and loam and such. A little hot on the nose, with a warming/numbing alcohol stab from time to time if you dig too deep. With some water, this develops a scent of industrial coal and oyster brine. 

Mouthfeel: Thin, but oily. 

Palate: Carries the nose forward. Surprisingly hot for 46% - clearly on the younger side - I get pale pear, yellow apple, leather, red grapes, mildly funky wood smoke, coal tar, salt, lightly fragrant heathery peat, white pepper, and a nice rich vein of honey. Unlike my last review of this, it tastes quite young to me. I would guess 6-8 years. The honey is the nicest note, followed by the perfumed coal smoke. 

Finish: Another departure from my first review - this isn't long, but in fact too short, only barely acceptable - smoke, peat, honey, and oak. Evaporates strangely quickly for something so smoky. A tiny, miniscule bit of ash remains on your tongue at the end. 

Verdict: A great Highland expression, but not as amazing as I remembered from eight years ago. Frankly, the independent bottles of Ardmore that I've had have blown this out of the water. This is a very solid bottle in lots of ways - for a lightly peated dram, it's directly comparable to the 12 year Bowmore, or the 12 year Highland Park, despite being much younger - but it also could use some more time in the cask to deepen the various flavors here. Good, not great. For $60, you can honestly do a bit better - but that carries the caveat that this is long, long out of production, and isn't available anymore. So, make of that what you will.