Sold outDec 2023In short · Ardbeg (Islay), 16 years.
“A deep and distinctly peaty nose – as expected, we agreed – but this example of the cult southern Islay make really did brim with peat embers, burning gorse wood, coal…”Extract · full tasting notes at SMWS
SMWS 33.140 is a single cask of Ardbeg, in the Islay region, 16 years old, bottled at 60.7%, released in the Dec 2023 Outturn. Every Society bottle numbered 33.x is from Ardbeg.
Specs, price and tasting-note extract from the SMWS. Full notes on smws.com.
On Islay's Kildalton coast, Ardbeg (1815) makes peat-smoke sing. Where you brace for brute force you meet instead something clean, fragrant, almost delicate threaded through the smoke, a paradox that has won it a near-religious following. Left for dead more than once, it was rescued in 1997 by Glenmorangie, now under LVMH, and its Committee of devotees numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Uigeadail and Corryvreckan are modern legends.