Ardbeg Rollercoaster Committee Release

Ardbeg Rollercoaster Exclusive 10th Anniversary Committee Edition is an intense, Islay Scotch Whisky. This liquid CV features a portion of malt distilled in every year from 1997 to 2006, and this is what's inside ... 1997 Cask: Second Fill Barrel 1998 Cask: Refill Hogshead 1999 Cask: First Fill Barrel 2000 Cask: First Fill Barrel 2001 Cask: Refill Barrel 2002 Cask: Refill Barrel 2003 Cask: First Fill Barrel 2004 Cask: First Fill Barrel 2005 Cask: Second Fill Sherry Butt 2006 Cask: Refill Hogshead It has a sweet & balanced birth with a mix of malt notes, apple & cold wood smoke; while a creamy life adds a peat tingle, vanilla, maple syrup, spices, tangy starburst, oily smoke & sherry; that led to a sweet yet slightly bitter, coastal death of medium length with notes of pear, overripe banana, beer & cool smoke. November 2017 / May 2018 / August 2022

Ardbeg Rollercoaster is one of those legendary committee releases, a bottle that is known for being rare and full of a background story. Actually Rollercoaster has different whiskies from the first ten years that Ardbeg re-opened under their new administration. I am also pretty sure that this single malt has whiskies from the previous committee releases, making it a "Rollercoaster" of different Ardbeg expressions. Bottled at 57.3%abv. On the nose, it has the crazy notes you expect, but it feels like it could be better. A pair of new socks is the first note i get. Then red chilli. Wasabi and bacon. It has the typical Ardbeg herbal notes. It resembles a flu medicine called "Lemonflu" that exists in my country (it is like a lemon night quill remedy). Red berries appeared from somewhere. On the palate i have the same critic, something is missing to make this great. Sweet and spicy. Starts with impalpable sugar and then red chilli. It is exactly like a sweet treat called "Alfajor" which has no proper translation to english. Please google it and you will know what i am talking about here. Not very complex. Aftertaste gave me a nuclear wasabi explosion; herbal notes and ashes. Nothing else. Not bad, but nothing too exciting. Overall, this is far from the thing i expected it to be. The sweetness here feels disonant to the spiciness. It is not super peaty nor smokey. Herbal stuff, spicy stuff, sweet stuff, but not in a balanced and interesting way. It is not complex at all. Really underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad whisky by any means, it is just not superb as i expected, due to the rarity and price of it. My score for this very normal dram, is 88 over 100. It should have been better.

Wood. Smoke. Long finish. Burnt sugar.