islay_emissary
Ardbeg An Oa
Single Malt — Islay, Scotland
Reviewed
October 18, 2017 (edited July 11, 2020)
A dram of this and a free glass were our consolation prizes after being told by Ardbeg's Visitor Center Manager, Jackie Thomson, that she didn't want to fill the next distillery tour because the group required an interpreter and she thought it might be too busy for them. I assume it was the group of Frenchies we saw double-cheek kissing her while we were having lunch in their renovated and upscale cafe. For those of you that don't know the history, Glenmorangie bought Ardbeg from Hiram Walker in 1997 when production was limited. Glenmorangie was then acquired by LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton), the luxury goods conglomerate, in 2004. LVMH has net income of about $6 billion on annual sales of around $35 billion. Much of these inflated profits come from people willing to spend up to $10,000 for a Louis Vuitton handbag made with about $20 bucks of cheap leather. Not wanting to get ripped off, I only spend about $1,500 for my wife's Gucci's made with the same cheap leather. Anyway, since Ms. Thomson was very polite and also easy on the eyes, she somehow mesmerized us into not getting worked up. The important thing to be gleaned from all of this is the direction both Glenmorangie and Ardbeg are heading with NAS expressions. Since the acquisition of Glenmorange by LVMH, their bottles have been redesigned to have a more curvaceous and appealing look. They are also coupled with elegant sounding names such as The Quinta Ruban, Nectar d'Or, and LaSanta. Soon, we will need to order our whisky with the assistance of a sommelier. Ardbeg is going in a similar direction with a lineup of cool sounding NAS whiskies designed to get to market quickly. Double maturation, quarter-casking, and use of virgin American and European oak are all experiments that have produced some excellent single-malts in an accelerated timeframe, so I wouldn't expect this trend to end anytime soon. After all, increased sales and profits are the name of the game. As for Ardbeg AN OA, well...........I've never had an Ardbeg that I would rate less than 4 stars, and the same holds true here. My favorite, however, is still Ardbeg 10, so I hope they don't mess with the recipe.
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@WhiskeyLonghorn- It hard base a review on one dram. Especially when you’re pissed off like we were. 🙂
There’s a lot of bad feelings out there for this bottle, like it’s the red headed stepchild of the Ardbeg core line, bit I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was a good introduction to their style, and Ardbeg + PX is a winning combination to me. It doesn’t have the punch of Ugi, but it’s still a quality pour IMHO.
Pranay, yes, my perception of Ardbeg has completely changed. Cascode, lesson learned; book tours in advance. Soba, thanks!
Great review :-)
Bummer. That’s the problem with independent visits and being on a schedule. We had similar inconvenience at a couple of distilleries, but fortunately we did Islay on a special whisky aficionados tour so had no issues.
Enlightening review. And funny...