SMWS code 33 is Ardbeg, in the Islay region. It is an operating distillery, founded in 1794. Any Society bottling numbered 33.x (for example 33.1, 33.42) is a single cask from Ardbeg.
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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.
There's nothing better than getting off the ferry and heading straight to Ardbeg for a bacon roll and a few drams to start the day, breathe in the sea air, and check out the T. rex skull for some pictures.
First-hand notes from Karyn and Blair.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottles single casks under numeric codes rather than distillery names, so a label reading 33.403 means cask 403 from distillery 33. That distillery is Ardbeg, in Islay. More on Ardbeg at Wikipedia.
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
Other Islay distilleries: 3 Bowmore, 10 Bunnahabhain, 23 Bruichladdich, 29 Laphroaig, 43 Port Ellen, 53 Caol Ila, 111 Lagavulin, 127 Bruichladdich (Port Charlotte), 129 Kilchoman · all Islay codes
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