Ardbeg Dark Cove (2016 Committee Release)

$142

Sharp pepper taste. Dark chocolate finish on the pallet

THIS is the one!!! When I had my first sip of this I had to belt out an old fashioned Ric Flair "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!". My my my my, ok, settling down. Everything I want in a whisky is in this glass. This is my home run. If I could only have one bottle, this is the one I'd drink from this moment on ad infinitum. The nose and palate are supreme. Not only does it have the elements you love from their Uigeadail bottling, it also has an awesome, juicy, fat and peppery filet mignon in there! An ocean full of salty goodness, and deep chocolate covered cherries. To me, it's the perfect balance of sweet meets savory. I cannot say enough good things about this dram. ETERNAL thanks for Dreaming of Islay exchanging some samples with me.

When I reminded my wife today that I'd purchased this bottle two weeks ago but hadn't opened it, she made it clear that was the first thing we'd do once we got home. God, I love her! Happily, Dark Cove lives up to my expectations, and then some. It's a little different than Uigeadail, but within the Ardbeg lineup the two share the closest family resemblance. As soon as I poured it out, this scotch suffused the room with Ardbeg smoke brightened by sherry. It's rich, medicinal, with a distinctly nutty quality at times (peanut, or cashew, a fatty nut), and toasted wood chips. The palate starts out quite salty and oily, with an ideal texture and viscosity for a scotch. It makes other drams seem watery in comparison. Molasses and honey are there in spades, thick and mouth-coating. The photo finish lights up with honeyed smoke, barbecue, iodine, and that dark chocolate characteristic of the best peated whiskies. It also has a vindaloo level of spicy heat at the end, although it doesn't manifest as a burn, just a perfect level of warmth. The Dark Cove name is an apt metaphor for the scotch -- it's like ducking under a stone outcropping and huddling by a fire to shelter from a seastorm. Whether it's worth the substantial premium over Uigeadail (which is $80-85 in most liquor stores) is debatable, but it's a top-notch dram all the same.

While I"m sad that we're seeing more and more NAS special releases at higher prices, if it's good, I won't hold the lack of an age statement against it (can't say the same for the price). And this is quite good. If I were to point someone to a whiskey with an oily mouthfeel, this would be the one. The nose is all honey with coy hints of peat and brine. On the palate, pears, peat, and that sweet honey slowly build and make themselves known with an assurance you can expect from Ardbeg. Those slowly fade into a delightful punch of tartness followed by a rush of saliva who is just trying to figure out what's going on. The sweet honeyed peat sits on the roof of your mouth with a small campfire to keep it warm. And it stays there indefinitely.