Whisky opinions, articles, feature pieces, info and reviews.
For the review and tasting notes of the Ardbeg Kelpie Committee Edition, scroll further down.
With multi-tasking all the rage these days, this piece combines two distinct happenings involving Ardbeg. The second of these relates to Kelpie, this year’s new release to coincide with Ardbeg Day. But before we try and conquer that wee beastie, have you heard of Ardbeg Untamed?
Continue reading “Ardbeg Kelpie Committee Release & Ardbeg Untamed”
Ardbeg. That wonderful Islay distillery with a cult following so devoted, over 120,000 fans from over 130 countries have pledged their allegiance to ensure the distillery never closes its doors again. Again? Yes, Ardbeg has quite a tale to tell…
Ardbeg has a weight, a brand, a persona, that is bigger than itself. It has a reputation for huge, bold, peaty whiskies, and its name travels so far and with such reverence that you could be forgiven for thinking it’s the biggest distillery on Islay. In truth, it’s actually the second smallest! With just one pair of stills churning away, its potential annual production capacity is just a trickle over 1.1 million litres.
If you’re here just to read the review on the Dark Cove release, scroll further down.
Ardbeg Day is just around the corner again, which means it’s time to shake off the Autumn blues (or dust off your Spring hat if you’re in the northern hemisphere) and gear up for all the fun and excitement of Ardbeggian delights.
I’ve written much about Ardbeg’s history, the Ardbeg Committee and Ardbeg Day in the past. So rather than fill up space by repeating it all on this page, you can re-visit those pieces here (Ardbeg Day 2015 report), here (Perpetuum review) and here (Ardbeg Day 2014 & Auriverdes review) if you need to fill in any blanks. For the purposes of a concise read, let’s cut straight to the chase and get stuck into Ardbeg Day and the annual release for 2016.
Whisky and heavy metal? The late whisky writer, Michael Jackson, once compared a particular single malt to a car (e.g. “the Rolls-Royce of whisky”). Others have since compared certain single malts to particular Grand Cru wines. More recently, people have started writing tasting notes for whiskies and suggested various songs or bands to match and pair with the whisky. So, whisky and music is now a thing, right? Okay then, let’s take it one step further…
No one likes to admit it, but there was once a time when heavy metal music was actually commercially successful, and major record labels were falling over themselves trying to sign up hard rock acts. The genre is lampooned today, and often labelled dismissively as hair metal or glam metal. But, like me, you might be from that era when heavy metal artists were actually on top of all the charts and hair metal bands ruled the airwaves. But has anyone ever compared whisky and heavy metal artists? Or matched the two together? Perhaps now is the time. Get out the hair gel, put on your spandex, and take yourself back to the 1980’s… Continue reading “The 1980’s heavy metal music guide to whisky”
Ardbeg Day continues to grow and build momentum each year, and on a truly global scale. It is now one of the highlights of the whisky calendar, and the main events that get held around the planet are spectacular occasions…
Sydney is spoiled for choice with a number of whisky expo-style shows running through town each year and May 15-16 saw The Whisky Show return to the Stamford Plaza hotel at Mascot to strut its stuff.
The Whisky Show offered three sessions; one on the Friday evening, and then 12noon-4.00pm and 5.00pm-9.00pm on the Saturday. Of course, the Saturday sessions coincided with World Whisky Day, so it was a fine opportunity to celebrate the occasion.
[Update 2024: The article below was originally written in 2015. Of course, the *new* Port Ellen distillery opened its doors in March 2024, but this changes the narrative only a little. Much of what follows remains valid, given it will be many years until the new spirit has matured, and there will always be lust for the “old” Port Ellen.] What makes Port Ellen whisky so special? Why is the Port Ellen distillery so revered, considering it was decided to close it down in 1983? Let’s look at the fully story, including why Port Ellen whisky makes plenty of people envious…
Ardbeg. The very name conjures up evocative images, flavours, and pre-conceived ideas. For many, it means a big, peaty, smoky, Islay whisky. For others, it represents complexity, refinement, sweetness, and quality. Some link the name to the decline and downturn of the Scotch industry in the 1980’s, resulting in distillery closures and cutbacks. Many of those same folks also link the name to a Phoenix-like resurrection, given the distillery came back from the dead in 1997 and now struts the roost with style and finesse.
For me, it is all of those things, plus one more: Fun.
Ardbeg is a fun brand. The distillery and its blending/creation team can produce some of the most refined, stylish, and unbelievably-good drams on the planet, but the brand has never become stuffy or weighed down under a Rolls Royce-like persona. Rather, Ardbeg presents itself as being fun, vibrant, innovative, inclusive, cheeky, and left-of-centre. If Ardbeg was a style or a fashion genre, it would definitely be a hipster! And its whiskies are all the more endearing as a result.
Many whisky commentators today make reference to cult whiskies or distilleries with cult followings. As best as I can tell, such references really didn’t exist until 1997. Then Ardbeg was reborn.
Ardbeg has a weight, a brand, a persona, that is bigger than itself. It has a reputation for huge, bold, peaty whiskies, and its name travels so far and with such reverence that you could be forgiven for thinking it’s the biggest distillery on Islay. In truth, it’s actually one of the smaller ones. With just one pair of stills churning away, its potential annual production capacity is just a tick over 1.1 million litres. But as we all know, size doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it that counts…
The growth and boom in the single malt industry in the last 15 years or so has given birth to the rise of the Whisky Nerd. The sort of person who knows (or thinks they know) every last detail about a distillery, or a particular bottling, or the latest industry gossip. They’ll be able to tell you which distilleries still use wormtubs; what year Laphroaig was founded; and – if you hand them a glass of anonymous whisky – they’ll sniff the glass and tell you which distillery it comes from; what its age is; and which warehouseman farted on the day the cask was filled.
They are the same people who can get very passionate if they hear you say something about whisky that they disagree with or believe to be incorrect. Fights have started and blood has been spilt over such simple opinions like which vintage release was the best ever Ardbeg! (Okay, readers, so was it the 1977 or 1974?)
So – if you’re the sort of person who likes to upset an OCD sufferer by visiting their house and tilting all of their hung pictures so that they’re crooked on the wall – here is a list of things you can say or do to annoy a Whisky Nerd:
