I told myself I'd never go back....and here I am. Another over priced NAS ardbeg. Why do I hate myself so? Nose - That weird vanilla meets almost baby vomit or sour milk thing you get on younger peated whiskies comes right out to me. There's more smoked oak than normal. Mint. An irish springs soap. It's a weird ardbeg but it's ardbeg. I could use some lemon. Taste - Burnt clay and intense iodine peat jumped out and then you get this roasted and burnt oak...they nailed the "scorched" aspect of this, way better than I expected. I'd have bet a lot of money against them here. This is a giant massive peat bomb hitting on all cylinders. If you love peat and you liked overly charred barrel, you can't really go "wrong" but is it great? Is it good? That's where I struggle. I get the off notes of youth though turned down vs blaaack or drum or some of these other trash ardbeg's of late. It's not as refined as the Arrrrdbeg, but that thing was so refined, yet not old...it was boring. After the initional smoke bomb note, I now get candy cigarette, powered sugar, and some sweet oak notes. There's some pine and winter green mint notes to round this one out. A bold and for once I'm going to admit well put together gimmick from ardbeg. Worth of 2 stars and I finally can at least say, at least ardbeg didn't steal my money on an LE. Would I buy again? Nah. But hey it's a good enough whisky to try once and this bottle will be around a bit. Wish I"d gotten 2 of these instead of 2 blacks though...god that sucked.