I’ve heard told the tales that Ardbeg special releases have gone down in quality over the years. Given that most of the Committee Releases are in the $150 range and most of the general releases of those Committee Releases are in the $125 range, this fact, coupled with the reputation of being low quality, is enough to make me refrain from purchases. After all, $150 or $125 strikes me as far too much to pay for anything without an age statement or some other potentially impressive reason to drop that type of cash. Truth be told, the most I’ve ever spent on a bottle of whisky has been for the Lagavulin Distiller’s Edition at $110, and even though that doesn’t carry your traditional age statement, it carried barreled and bottling dates, which serves as its own age statement (or at least, it carried these until recently…if I’m to understand, 2023 DEs didn’t have barreled and bottling dates?). In any case, I’ve also heard told the tales that this Ardbeg BizarreBQ is quite good, and at $85, it’s prices much more reasonably. The choice here is whether you want to buy yet another bottle of the Uggie or this, and given my penchant for novelty, I went with this last month (in an order that also contained Glen Scotia 12 Year Special Release finished in Amontillado Cask, which aside from hearing that it was good, I’m a sucker for Amontillado if only for its association with Poe…if you’ll just come with me, the Glen Scotia’s in the basement down this long tunnel I promise I won’t trap you inside and brick up!). And well, as far as this Ardbeg is concerned, the word on the street isn’t wrong. It’s quite good. In fact, I noted in a recent review that it reminds me a great deal of the Lagavulin 11 Year Charred Oak Offerman Edition. Now people weren’t as crazy about the Offerman Charred Oak as they were about the Stout finish, and I get that, but the Charred Oak was also damned good, as is this Ardbeg. The first time I tasted this was a few weeks ago with my dad, and we had just finished sampling Laphroaig Lore before turning to this and the combination was one hell of a pairing. I sometimes think moving from something subtle to something, well, less subtle, works better than moving the opposite direction and that night we were moving from subtle to less subtle, though I hesitate to say this Ardbeg is abrasive. It’s just stronger, smokier, and that made a huge difference in my first taste of this. For a moment after I sipped, I couldn’t help but note that the palates felt similar. There was a smokiness on the tongue that was undercut with a sherried sweetness that was quite delightful on both drams. The nose on the Ardbeg, despite it being 103 proof or so, isn’t overpowering even though it’s smoky. There’s a BBQ smoke quality to it, but it’s not harsh as well as sea salt and vanilla, that’s overall quite delightful. On the palate, it continues to feel slightly charred but not in a burnt ashtray overdone meat kind of way but more of a well done steak you can still enjoy. But where this really excels is on the finish. My god, it’s got that palate of sherried sweetness and peat smoke and char, which then fades into this salted dark chocolate caramel delight on the back end. It doesn’t stay quite as long as I would like. The finish isn’t as quick as a high school boy on prom night, but it doesn’t take quite as long as a seasoned porn star shooting his 220th film where half the run time is the money shot either. Never mind that. I just brough images to all our minds I’m sure we’d much rather forget, so moving on, the length doesn’t necessarily matter when it’s this delicious. As a departure from the Uggie, I’d recommend this to peat fans, to Ardbeg fans, to fans of smoke and char. I also recently picked up the Laphroaig Cask Strength Batch 16 and will review that soon, and I’d say this is closer in palate to the Batch 15 of that, which also had a lot of char and smoke and maybe bordered on too much. This doesn’t border on too much but hits those notes just right. In fact, I’d definitely recommend this over the Corry, but of course, traditionalists might prefer the 10 or the An Oa, and that’s fine. One thing I’ll say: it bodes well for Ardbeg getting back on track for their special releases. If this is still available after the holidays when my whisky budget opens back up, I might even get another bottle. And for me, there’s no higher praise.