Ardbeg Corryvreckan

Bottle: I bought my latest on sale for $69 a few weeks ago. This is 57.1% ABV, no color, no chill filtering. Be careful with this dram! This is “fuck your tastebuds” in a bottle. Corryvreckan is the most intense whisky I’ve tried so far, and I’ve tried 4 different Octomores. It’s like they decided to turn up the peat of Ardbeg 10, and try to balance that by making it as sweet and spicy as possible. Nose: Salt and peat. Campfire and honey-coated smoked ham. Palate: So sweet and so smoky! The two profiles battle, and there is no clear winner. This is not the smooth, rich, sophisticated feel of Octomore. Corryvreckan is violent in your mouth. The sweet notes are honey, caramel, and cantaloupe. The smoke is dense ash, like licking a cigarette ashtray. This is salty, spicy, and fishy as well - kippers, as one who has tried kippers, might say. Tart fruits are present - like a gastrique. Ardbeg 10 is in there somewhere, but it is struggling in the vortex of flavors. There is definitely ingredients younger than the 10 in the NAS. The mouthfeel is not oily like the 10, despite being packed with flavors. The aftertaste is far less pleasant than Ardbeg 10 or Uigeadail. The smoke is harsher – cigarettes rather than cigars, and a coppery sweetness sticks to the back of the mouth. Water improves this dram by calming its rough edges. This can take quite a bit of water and will still have a youthful alcohol kick. But diluting down to less than 50%, and you will start to lose some of the flavors. Definitely a flawed dram, but I like to keep a bottle around for when I feel like to get beat up by a whisky. 88/100.

Spice initial flavor, very sweet flavor afterwards. Leathery and smokey taste. Spicy lingering flavor with a medium finish.