Ardnamurchan Spirit 2018 AD

This was picked a while back during the days of the SDT by @LeeEvolved A new distillery from the Highlands, with an anxious delivery, is provided with this Spirit. All new to me as well as I never have heard or read anything about this distillery. Thanks Lee for finding those rarities and sharing. A fruity and slightly peated nose; a rubber tire peaty quality. Wisps of sherry, red stone fruits, black tea with honey with cinnamon and orange. There is a subtle sweetness of vanilla, caramel and chocolate which slowly emerges as well as some hazelnut and almonds. Heat, spice, sweetness and dryness all blast the palate in an initial explosion. In a bitter and wooden palate with cinnamon powder spice, black pepper. Barely detectable are some jammy notes of red raspberries or rhubarb with a slice or two of apple. Water is a must as the spice and heat is toned down. More caramel and vanilla cream soda flavors come through. Bitter orange, a hint of black licorice and drying oak tannins, lasting a medium-long length, bring the palate to a close. A strong opening on the nose with a weakened palate. What is expressed on the nose is not translated to the palate and that is unfortunate. There is potential, but more time in the cask is needed which would draw more flavor and allowing the embodiment of the nose. Like picking a fruit before it’s ripened: it’s slightly bitter and slightly hard. [85/100][Tasted: 4/24/20]

Remember back in mid-2000s, every where you looked there were new homes being built? Folks took out mortgages on $1M properties with 0% down, only to flip them within months? That worked really well in an economy built on the premise of the market which is going up. But what happens when the market suddenly doesn’t go up? In this case, the banks came collecting, only to find folks couldn’t pay because the market started a slowdown. A bubble. That brings me to this new distillery. Seems like every other week I’m hearing about a new distillery opening, or an old one doing major multi-million dollar upgrades. Some new distilleries even open up through crowdsourcing, promising returns based on “ amazing upswings in the whiskey market “. Hopefully not a bubble. Hopefully the market will just go up and up and up.... So tonight is my once a week whiskey night, where I have my nice 1 ounce pour while watching Netflix. I’ve gone from a few pours a week during the SDT days to two 6cl ones, and now just one 1 ounce /week....hopefully my decline isn’t indicative of the market, but just localized. Tonight’s pour is through courtesy of @LeeEvolved , who sent a generous sample of this new Highlander. As Lee points out, it’s a blend of 3-4 yr old with a new 1- 1.5 yr old. NCF and no coloring. This Adelphi owned distillery is in the remote western Highlands, uses 100% natural renewable resources, and local barley from Fife. And get this...it uses blockchain technology, which helps it in so many ways from logistics, to data analytics, to customer experience. That’s all good...but is meaningless without it actually tasting good. Well...if this new make is any indication...that’s not an issue. On to the taste: I’m getting a sherry finishing...there’s a wisp of peat integrated really well with marzipan, red fruit, and honey. Extremely well balanced considering the age. Drinks like something much older. I wish I bought a bottle. I’ll be a buyer of future releases. Thanks Lee.

Everybody loves a new, Scottish distillery. Ardnamurchan is a Highland region distillery that still hasn’t offered a true whisky to this point- they keep blending 1-1.5 year old spirit with some 3-4 year old stuff that’s been aging gracefully in first fill, sherry casks. This release is called AD2018 and it’s the 3rd such release from Ardna. Why didn’t they just go ahead and release an official 3 year old whisky? Well, I don’t rightly know. AD 2018 is bottled at 55.3% ABV and is natural color and isn’t chill filtered. I picked up this bottle from a U.K. store for a rather pricy $60. Let’s peer into what could be in store once Ardnamurchan stops “blending down” and finally gives us an official whisky in the next year or two: It’s caramel and amber in color, quite oily with thin legs and heavy droplets. The nose reveals fresh cut oak from the younger portion that’s been aged for just over a year in ex-bourbon casks. Cinnamon and sherry, raspberry candies and hints of cough syrup mingle in along with the faintest of peat smoke. The earthy peat has been left behind in favor of the smoky variety. I like that here- it just needs a bit more IMO. The palate also reveals nice sherry cask notes, evidence of first fill goodness. Ripe berries and fruit followed by a hot and dry cinnamon note around the mid sip. It turns overly dry leading into the back end and leaves a bit of gasping for cool air. The ABV shows its face and really delivers the goods leading into the finish. It continues to be hot and dry, slightly salty and smoky with lingering berry sweetness. Overall, the flavor profile is astounding for such a young product. The master blender definitely made sure to use enough sherry cask whisky to leave an impression and it works overall. The fact they acknowledge using peated whisky in this blend makes me take a step back because there just isn’t enough of a peated presence for me. Leave it out or bump it up, guys. It isn’t a score buster, it just makes me pause on grading it higher. The price is a bit prohibitive for what you’re getting, age wise, but it’s still a tasty dram, no doubt. 3.75-4 stars for total package delivery with a subtraction for price point and failure to deliver the peat as advertised. So, 3.5 it is. Here’s to looking forward to their first, true whisky- whenever that may be. Cheers.

Stop number 111 on the SDT is Ardnamurchan. Another newcomer to the scotch game, Ardnamurchan is a Highland distillery that is located the furthest west on the Scottish mainland, on a far reaching peninsula which is also named Ardnamurchan. Its name is Gaelic for “headland of the great seas”. Legally speaking, this cannot he called a scotch whisky, as the 3 year old stock they have was blended with a 1 year old spirit, which makes this a 1 year old spirit and not a whisky (because as everybody knows scotch must be a minimum of 3 years old). Bottled at 55.3% ABV and is non chill filtered and natural color of a dark orange amber. Ardnamurchan splits their distillations between peated and unpeated, but this is a mixture of each, and matured in first fill PX and Oloroso sherry casks. The nose is malty sherry with some light peat. Fruity with oranges, apricots and maybe even some rhubarb. Hazelnut, pecans, salted caramel, chocolate, vanilla and barley sugar. More sherry. Wood spice, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and fennel. Some brown sugar. Water brought out orange and raspberry flavored chocolate. The palate has a sweet heat arrival. It’s turns more savory than sweet, and even a little bitter. A nice medium-light peat level, but not quite as smoky as it is earthy. Pepper, nutmeg and chocolate licorice. Water takes the heat out and focuses in on the peat and brings out the smoke. A medium bodied mouthfeel that is very oily and mouthwatering. The finish is long with sherry, oranges and peat, but is also bitter and tannic, dry. If ever there was a waste of first fill sherry casks it’s here. Burning first fill casks on a release that can’t even be called scotch strikes me as foolish. Those should be used for a minimum, A MINIMUM, of 8 years to get real depth of character and not just window dressing. Of course if you have some first fill casks that aren’t the best quality they can be used for a quick 1 year finish, but that’s not what’s happening here. Also, I feel like the peat/sherry combination didn’t really work here and they were at odds with each other rather than working in concert. First fill or even refill bourbon casks are better for the very young peated malts, with maybe a quick sherry or port finish. Now if you are talking about an older peated whisky, sherry may work better. Perhaps in a few years this may turn out to be a real gem, but in its present form it’s not quite ready for the spotlight. Still, it has a good flavor base to work with. 3.5 and thanks to @LeeEvolved for the sample. Cheers

Ardnamurchan is a new distillery from the owners of independent bottler Adelphi and has a couple of claims to uniqueness. Firstly, it’s located on the most westerly peninsula of the British mainland, so visiting it will require some commitment. Secondly, it claims to be the greenest distillery in Scotland, as all its power and heat come from local renewables and its byproducts are recycled. Fine, but how does it taste? Given its youth and anemic production volumes, the distillery hasn’t yet bottled anything old enough to count as whisky, but it is previewing its spirit with this blend of distillate aged from one to 3-1/2 years. (Under Scotch rules, that makes it a one-year-old, even though the oldest spirit in the blend would count as whisky if bottled alone.) The distillery is splitting its output between peated and unpeated, making each for six months of the year, and this release is a combination of both from a mix of PX and Oloroso sherry casks. Some of those casks come from the same place that supplies Glenfarclas, so it should be good quality wood. Indeed, the nose is distinctly sherry, with lots of orange notes. In the mouth it’s very rich and feels more like a liquor than a whisky, but it’s clear that most of the flavor is coming from the casks. The spirit was designed to be very light for extended aging, so it’s hard to get a sense of how it will taste in a few more years and in less active casks. Still, it’s tasty and worth a try, and didn’t feel out of place in an evening otherwise devoted to tasting Adelphi bottlings.