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Ardbeg 10 year old – Distillery Bottling

If you’re a fan of the Islay malts I’m sure your intrigued by the constant battle to be the biggest, peatiest, nastiest malt. Ardbeg has been extensively and expensively restored but, lacking their old fanless malting facilities, seem to be going for the ‘we’re more subtle than our neighbours’ approach. They’re probably right, but if it’s subtlety you’re after you’re in very much the wrong place.

So what’s this gentle dominatrix like? I don’t like Islay malts, which is a strange thing to say for a whisky lover, but I find the predominant flavours unpleasant.  The honey and citrus of Speyside malts remind me of summer meadows, but surely the tingle of phenol followed by a mouth-full of peat is the taste of the trip from hospital to grave. Ardbeg softens the journey with a pretty nurse and a spring morning burial, but it’s still only Monday mornings and children’s parties when I find this prospect appealing.