Glendronach 1992 16 Year Old Single Cask Whisky Review!

Yes, those numbers are correct. This is an old one! A 16-year old single cask Glendronach, bottled in 2009, from the very first batch of single cask official bottlings!

Glendronach's single cask releases have changed quite a bit over the years. Well obviously the character, flavour and quality all varies with individual bottlings, as is the nature of single casks. But much like the distillery's core range they've also changed in style and approach, with vatting, re-racking and cask finishing (both declared and potentially undeclared) occurring and with more younger releases in the batches, and there have been quite a few releases that are notably lighter on the sherry influence than was previously the case. Obviously the massive increase in global demand for sherry casks has a part to play there, and so does the distillery closure from 1996-2002 that has been a major thorn in this booming distillery's side over the last five years or so. Along with its siblings Benriach and Glenglassaugh the distillery has also undergone a change of ownership, from private ownership under Billy Walker & Co. to corporate ownership under American company Brown Forman in 2016. There was also a change of master distiller / master blender in there too, with Rachel Barrie taking the reigns from Billy Walker soon after the sale of the distillery. Naturally there's also an increased demand for whisky in general now, particularly for high-end whisky in the last two years or so which has to also play a part, and has seen certain casks in these batches being sent only to certain markets and/or regions. So it's understandable that there would have to be changes in the way things were & are done, after all we are talking about over a decade of time now and the world is now a very different place, with another 15 batches of single cask Glendronachs released in the meantime. Other cask types have also worked their way in there more recently, from slight deviations like port casks to major swerves like virgin oak maturation, which again I'd assume to be loosely related to the huge demand on sherry casks and the massive price increase that goes along with it. 

Speaking of which, we have to wonder where it's going to stop. Sherry casks are now seriously expensive, and demand still outweighs supply. Sherry-heavy distilleries and brands have all increased their pricing substantially in order to cover some of this increase, and in many cases they have also changed in style and character - whether that be less sherry influence, or younger whisky, or both. Let's also remember that these are sherry "seasoned" casks, where they have held sherry for a relatively short period of time, usually two years or less, before that sherry is tipped out and the cask is shipped to the whisky producer / distillery for filling with whisky / spirit. The natural thing that'll happen is that seasoning time will become shorter, resulting in less influence from the wine and more influence from the wood itself during maturation. Shortcuts will be taken by the cooperages and/or bodegas in order to sell more casks, and the only real alternative to avoid this is to use other cask types. Distilleries that only a few years ago were loudly & proudly only maturing in ex-sherry casks are these days releasing other cask types, including of course ex-bourbon, resulting in a completely different whisky to what that distillery or brand's customer were used to. This is also why we've seen other cask types become more popular, such as madeira, port, rum, sauternes, non-fortified wine, and the rest. It was also probably a major factor in the Scotch Whisky Association's revising of their regulations governing permitted cask types, where previously they had to be considered "traditional", but are now allowed to travel much further afield - to Mexico, for example. This is no bad thing, and only allows for more innovation and experimentation. Even when talking Glendronach, we've already seen small amounts of madeira, sauternes and port casks come to market, and I'm sure there'll be more to follow. The consumers and customers will just have to adapt! Will we see a Mezcal cask Glendronach in future? Now that'd be an interesting thing!

But I'm digressing, this particular single cask Glendronach pre-dates all of that drama. When this bottling was released in 2009, in the first ever batch of Glendronach single cask releases no less, Billy Walker and his consortium had only owned the distillery for less than a year. The distillery had been revived from its moth-balled slumber in 2002 under Allied Distillers, and was then purchased by Pernod Ricard in 2006, and prior to the re-opening the distillery's malting floors had been decommissioned, while in 2005 the four pot stills had been converted from direct-fire external heating to indirect internal steam heating, which of course meant major changes to the spirit character. If you've tasted a pre-closure Glendronach and then a 2006 distillation or newer it's impossible to argue that the spirit itself hasn't changed in character. When Billy & Co. came along in 2008 they secured quite a large amount of maturing stock in the deal, and set to work releasing new core range bottlings and revitalising the presentation standards by bottling at a minimum of 43% ABV, but more often at 46% without any chill filtration or added colouring, then selecting the "cream of the crop" to be bottled at cask strength as a single cask release. And I think it's safe to say that some of those releases have been amongst the greatest sherry cask single malts that we (or at least I) have seen in modern times. In this particular case, we have a 16-year old single Oloroso sherry butt, distilled in November 1992 and bottled in July 2009, with a yield of 598 bottles at a strength of 57.2% ABV. Obviously it's also non-chill filtered and no artificial colouring has been added. If memory serves this is the oldest Glendronach I've tasted to date in terms of the year of bottling, but it's a relatively young example at "only" 16 years of age. So, let's see how this little blast from the (recent) past goes, shall we? 

Glendronach 1992 16-year old single cask, 57.2%. Highlands, Scotland.

Cask #1140, distilled November 1992, matured in a single Oloroso sherry butt, bottled July 2009. Batch 1 of Glendronach's single cask releases. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 598 bottles. 

Colour: Dark rusty red. 

Nose: Rich, sweet and syrupy. A sherry bomb, of course! Dark chocolate mousse, well-spiced plum pudding with brandy sauce. Orange rind & brown sugar. "Rancio" around the edges with cured meats, aged balsamic vinegar and earthy mushroom. A fistful of roasted nuts too - hazelnut and walnut in particular. Touch of spent coffee grounds and musty old wood further in. 

Texture: Medium weight. Full-flavoured, rich & syrupy. Not quite as sweet as the nose suggested, but it's far from dry! No heat at all but a slight bitter astringency. 

Taste: Spicy plum pudding with brandy sauce again. Orange rind and more roasted nuts, earthy mushroom and aged balsamic. More wood spices, brown sugar and a touch of treacle, or even molasses. Touch of rum & raisin ice cream (with slight vanilla) as well.

Finish: Long length. Slightly brighter and lighter here initially with tinned cherries in syrup, some marzipan and stewed dates. Then balsamic again, a little ginger, and more orange rind - maybe blood orange here in fact, there's more bitterness. Slightly astringent with more dark chocolate to finish. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Big, rich, full-flavoured & massively sherried. But also not a one-trick pony like some of the modern sherry bombs are. It's very interesting to try a younger 16-year old version of these single cask releases that is still heavily sherried like the 24-28 year old casks are in the more recent batches of single cask Glendronachs. I'm not sure if it's worlds better than they are, but it's different. A little brighter perhaps, and also heavier on the cask influence, or at least more aggressively sherried. Plenty of power, and possibly the sweetest Oloroso cask Glendronach single cask that I've tried to date, where the older more recent examples tend to be less sweet and more spicy & wood-driven. I don't mind that sweetness though, in fact I tend to prefer the PX single casks from Glendronach by a small margin. 

This is a great big sherry bomb that is well suited to Christmas time - maybe more so in the northern hemisphere though, currently 35 degrees C here in Brisbane as I write this, with plenty of humidity as well. Thank god for air conditioning!  

There's something bittersweet about tasting this 16-year old single cask from 2009. The single casks will be getting back to that sort of age now, on the other side of the distillery's closure from 1996-2004. But those contemporary equivalents will not be like this. No floor-malted barley and thus no trace of peat, and no direct fired stills, and the availability of quality sherry casks like this is pretty much dead & gone. Much like the core range bottlings from Glendronach I'm sure they'll still be good whiskies, but much like those core range bottlings they'll certainly be different. They're still the kings of sherry cask whiskies if you ask me, particularly in the single cask releases. 

Cheers!

Redbreast 21 Year Old Whiskey Review!

It's been a while between Irish whiskey reviews. In fact it's been a while between Irish whiskeys for this reviewer - particularly of the single pot still variety. They're just not something that I seek out, generally. But this 21-year old Redbreast could change that!

In my experience, Irish whiskeys can be great, but they're often not. The core range bottlings from the likes of Jameson, Bushmills, and Tullamore blends generally don't float my boat, with low bottling strengths and lighter, more grain-driven character. And while the likes of Teeling, Connemara and co. are more characterful examples if you ask me, they're also leaning towards the Scottish style than what most of us expect when we're looking at an Irish dram; they're mostly double-distilled rather than triple-distilled, most of their offerings are single malts, and in a couple of cases they're even lightly peated. On the other hand, Redbreast is a brand that I haven't had much experience with so far. I've tried the entry level 12-year old and 15-year old, but that's it. So this 21-year old example is quite the interesting proposition, being a well-aged single pot still Irish whiskey, being matured in first-fill bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks, and perhaps most importantly being bottled at 46% ABV and non-chill filtered. Unfortunately I can't find any word on artificial colouring, and looking at this whiskey in the glass it could go either way. But we can forgive that since at least the other two boxes on our wishlist, strength and filtration, have been ticked. Being a 21-year old whiskey at 46% in 2021 this is not a cheap proposition, but it's still quite reasonably priced at around $350-400 AUD down under. It also seems to be quite scarce, like most of the popular whiskies & whiskeys around the world that are enjoying the current explosion in demand, which of course is also affecting pricing in many cases. Thankfully many of our local importers, distributors & retailers have resisted increasing their prices beyond their normal mark-up, while those who have jumped on the chance to drastically boost their profit margins - a.k.a. price gouging - are sticking out like sore thumbs. Hopefully that all settles down as the world slowly returns to some semblance of normality, but who knows!

Since this is my first review of a single pot still Irish whiskey, and my first review of a Redbreast, we have a few things to cover. Firstly, there is no Redbreast Distillery. This is a brand of whiskey produced by Midleton Distillery, the massive complex that is located in County Cork near the western coast of southern Ireland. And when I say massive, we're talking about a production capacity of over 65-million litres of spirit per year, through three large pot stills and three column stills - so roughly three-times the maximum output of the recently-expanded Glenlivet Distillery in Scotland, although it still pales in comparison with the huge grain whisky plants - the largest of which, Diageo's Cameronbridge plant, produces well over 100-million litres of grain spirit per year. Midleton Distillery is also responsible for Jameson, Powers, Writers Tears, Irishman, Red/Yellow/Green Spot, Method & Madness and also the namesake Midleton brand, among others, and a few of those brands are not under the ownership of Midleton's corporate overseers, Pernod Ricard, which would make those independent bottlings. That's all a bit of a strange concept from a Scotch whisky perspective, and is more similar to the practices of the bourbon / American whiskey industry, where much like in Ireland a handful of huge distilleries produce multiple brands of whiskey - Buffalo Trace Distillery, for example, produces around twenty different brands, all with multiple SKUs, at the one distillery. And that's not including the myriad of brands that are 'non-distiller producers' a.k.a. independent bottlers also sourcing their whiskey from the same place. And that's much the same as in Ireland, even more so in fact when you consider that as recently as the 1980s there were only two whiskey distilleries in the country. That has changed more recently with over 40 distilleries now active, and many of those being smaller and more "craft" oriented than the large corporate operations. On the other side of that coin, many of these more recently-commissioned distilleries are being opened by companies & brands that are already established with spirit and product that is sourced from elsewhere. But in the continuing market boom they have made the move to build their own distilleries, generally with a view to eventually move their entire operations there, moving away from their "sourced" whiskey. Teeling, Hyde and Tullamore D.E.W come to mind there, but there are quite a few other examples.

The other part of this Redbreast that is a bit of a strange concept from a Scotch whisky perspective would be the term 'single pot still'. Despite the name they're generally not actually produced in one single pot still - rather they're produced at a single distillery like a single malt or single grain whisky. Despite the efforts of the double-distilled single malts that I mentioned above, this style of whiskey has almost become synonymous with Irish whiskey to the casual observer, and Midleton Distillery is the largest producer of pot still Irish whiskey, while also producing blended whiskeys and occasionally also single malts in-house. So breaking down the terms, this is an Irish whiskey that has been distilled in pot stills at one single distillery, but it's not a single malt because there is both malted and unmalted (a.k.a. 'raw' or 'green') barley in the grain recipe / mash bill. The historical reason for this (partial) move away from malted barley was to avoid the English taxes that were placed on malted grains in Britain, and it was also a cheaper ingredient to produce, but it also resulted in a clearer point of difference between the Irish style and that traditionally made over the water in Scotland. Thus the term 'single pot still', which is sometimes also named 'pure pot still' or merely 'pot still whiskey' when the spirit is not produced at one distillery, became exclusive to Irish whiskey, although many of the older brands turned to cheaper and lighter blended whiskies & whiskeys when demand shifted that way. Redbreast is one of the oldest single pot still Irish whiskey brands, dating back to 1912, albeit with a few changes over that time - the original producer of the spirit, Jameson's Bow Street Distillery, closed in 1971, and there was a brief dalliance with producing a blended whiskey under the Redbreast name, before the brand's temporary death in 1985. The name & brand was subsequently sold to Irish Distillers (now owned by Pernod Ricard), before it was re-launched in 1991. The 21-year old expression that we're looking at today first launched in 2013, and if memory serves this is the oldest Irish whiskey that I've tasted to date. The sample for this review came from a generous fellow-whisky nerd. Right, let's get to it, shall we?

Redbreast 21-year old, 46%. County Cork, Ireland.

Single pot still Irish whiskey, produced from both unmalted and malted barley, triple distilled in pot stills at Midleton Distillery. Matured in first-fill ex-bourbon and ex-Oloroso sherry casks. Non-chill filtered, colouring unknown. 

Colour: Amber gold. 

Nose: Nutty, creamy and spicy. Dry, grassy, spicy grain, almost reminiscent of rye spiciness. Creamy with touches of vanilla and slightly-acidic dark cherry. Warm baking spices (cinnamon, clove & aniseed) and a little burnt caramel - verging on bitter. Baked stone fruit. Quite oaky as well, freshly toasted & sawn new wood. 

Texture: Light-medium weight. Richly fruity, creamy & spicy. Brighter than the nose suggested. Very slight touch of heat, pleasant. 

Taste: Creamy vanilla, maybe creamy vanilla fudge. Passionfruit curd too, but neither is overtly sweet. Fresh wood and dark, lightly burnt caramel. Those baking spices again but more the cinnamon & aniseed now. Touch of dried orange and roasted nuts. Fresh nectarine, white peach and a touch of fresh passionfruit, maybe a little under-ripe mango as well, all topped off with fresh double cream. 

Finish: Short-medium length. More passionfruit, touch of under-ripe mango, burnt caramel and fresh toasted wood. Fresh cream again with vanilla and a lighter touch of cinnamon. Stewed stone fruit & dark cherry - maybe cherry stones, actually. Touch of burnt caramel and that dry grassy grain character show through again towards the end. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: Surprisingly bright & fresh on the palate. While the nose suggested a drier, grain-driven spicy and woody dram, the palate gives a lovely zesty bright fruitiness that is quite refreshing, and fresher in style than the age statement would have you expect. The grain, oak and spice do still show themselves on the palate, but it's all balanced off thanks to the fresh stone fruit and creaminess that cut through that nicely. The lightly burnt caramel note is a little off-putting though and doesn't quite gel with the rest of the notes in the smell & taste, but thankfully it doesn't get in the way too much. 

Certainly a quality whiskey with good character and a lovely fresh fruitiness, a touch dull on the nose perhaps but that bright fruity character on the palate saves the show with ease. All told I'm not sure that I'd pick it as a 21-year old whiskey, but that could be down to the triple-distillation and particularly the unmalted grain, keeping things lighter & fresher than might be expected at this age.

It's refreshing and quite important to try these different whiskies / whiskeys and other spirits every now & then, helping to keep things fresh and keep the palate interested. And a single pot still Irish whiskey does give a refreshing change without straying too far from the comfort zone. Certainly worth trying if you haven't had the pleasure - think I'll have to track down a dram of Redbreast Cask Strength now, that'll make for a great comparison!

Cheers!

Balvenie 12 Year Old Whisky Review!

Every now and then you feel like a light and relatively easy dram, without completely sacrificing flavour. This entry-level Balvenie will do nicely!

Balvenie, or "The" Balvenie as it's officially known, is a large & high-profile distillery in the town of Dufftown, Speyside that was originally founded in 1892. Their 6-million litre annual production capacity puts them in between their two William Grant & Sons neighbours & stablemates, the giant Glenfiddich and the smaller and much lesser known Kininvie. All are located on the same massive WG&S site found to the north-east of Dufftown. An interesting side-note there, Kininvie Distillery is actually only a still house, their mash tun and washbacks are housed inside Balvenie's buildings, which is a little unusual in Scotland, but it's still considered to be made "on site" and they are operated separately. There are a few other examples of malt distilleries being located within larger plants, another one being Ailsa Bay, another WG&S distillery which is found inside the huge Girvan grain distillery, so Kininvie's situation isn't actually that strange. Balvenie is certainly the malt enthusiasts' choice of the three William Grant's spirits, although there's not a huge amount of Kininvie out there to choose from since it's mainly used for blends and "teaspooned" blended malts that are sold to independent bottlers - where a dash of Kininvie is added to a batch of Glenfiddich or Balvenie to prevent the buyer using the distillery name and bottling it as a single malt. There have been a few single malt official bottlings of Kininvie, but they tend to be older whiskies that were distilled in the early-1990s, not long after the distillery was founded. If memory serves only one of these was sold in Australia, and it was a 23-year old that was bottled just under 43% - and interestingly, only in a 350ml half-bottle! 

Despite being so close to each other, Balvenie, Glenfiddich and Kininvie do produce very different spirits. All three are blended together to result in Monkey Shoulder blended malt, and they're also blended with grain whisky to produce the Grant's blended whiskies. Balvenie is arguably the richer and weightier of the three whiskies, probably thanks to their shorter & fatter stills, and possibly also the floor-malted barley, which is actually lightly peated to around 5 ppm. But don't go looking for any smoke in the regular releases, since those malt floors only contribute around 15% of the distillery's malt. There have been a couple of peated Balvenies released more recently though, and since 2002 there's been one week of each distilling season / year where the distillery uses 100% peated barley in the malt floors. The floor-malted barley is also grown on the distillery's farm, named Balvenie Mains, a thousand-acre farm near the distillery, which is a very unusual thing for a distillery of this size and capacity. Also unusual for a distillery of this size is the fact that they still have their own on-site cooperage for the building & repair of their casks, and they also keep a coppersmith around for repairs & maintenance on their eleven pot stills and the other associated equipment. All of this means that there's only one step of the production process carried out off-site: the bottling stage, which takes place in a centralised William Grant's facility near Glasgow. The vast majority of Balvenie's expressions do carry age statements, with the youngest of the range being 12 years, all the way through to 50 years old - although that one will set you back a whopping $50,000 AUD!

There are two industry figureheads that are widely contributed with having pioneered the practice of cask finishing, a.k.a wood finishing, or double maturation, or extra maturation, or secondary maturation, or additional cask enhancement, whatever you want to call it. Those two are Glenmorangie's Bill Lumsden, and David Stewart, Balvenie's 'Malt Master' who started working at the distillery in 1962, and started playing around with cask finishing in the early 1980s. The first bottled result of that pioneering work was released back in 1993, when this Balvenie 12-year old Double Wood first hit the shelves. It's matured in refill ex-bourbon casks - the labelling actually says "traditional whisky oak", which I'd assume probably means refill American oak - for at least 12-years, then finished for up to 9 months in European oak ex-sherry casks. It's then moved into massive wooden marrying vats which are too large to be counted as part of maturation, called "tuns", for the vatting to marry together for an additional 3-4 months prior to bottling. As a quick digression, Balvenie pay homage to these large vats by releasing one of the few NAS bottlings in their line-up on a semi-regular basis : the TUN series, which while not cheap at over $500 AUD are still my picks of the Balvenie range - chiefly because they're bottled at a higher strength. Balvenie 12 is bottled at the minimum legal strength of 40% ABV, and is chill filtered and artificially coloured. It's currently the entry-level Balvenie expression, and typically sells for between $90 and $105 AUD, which isn't exactly cheap - particularly considering the low ABV - but is still reasonable in today's market. A 25th anniversary edition was also released in late 2018, but it was identical to the standard bottling in every way, save for a small maroon stripe being added to the outer packaging and the front label of the bottle. Let's get to it!

Balvenie 12-year old Double Wood, 40%. Speyside, Scotland.
Matured in "traditional whisky oak"- probably refill ex-bourbon casks for at least 12-years, finished in European oak sherry casks for up to 9 months. Chill filtered, artificially coloured.

Colour: Amber.

Nose: Light & sweet. Red apples, lighter bitter oak & slightly burnt caramel, dried raspberries, and a little dry dusty malt. Sweet watery / diluted honey, vanilla bean, and soft wood spices - cinnamon & nutmeg.

Texture: Light weight, easy drinking. Not as sweet as the nose suggested, with more spices. Not a hot whisky, but it is a little raw & spirit-y.

Taste: Dry spices - warm cinnamon, nutmeg, more dried raspberries, dusty malt and lightly bitter oak - think pencil shavings. More diluted honey behind.

Finish: Medium length. Floral sweetness, black pepper, more red apples. Sweeter here again, with vanilla sugar, honey and more pencil shavings.

Score: 2.5 out of 5. But only just. 

Notes: An easy, relatively un-challenging dram that still has a decent amount of flavour and character. Which is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. Yes it'd be better at 43-46% and without the chill filtration and colouring, but that's not really what this whisky is about. It's not quite aimed at that crowd (by which I mean: us!), and it is Balvenie's entry-level single malt after all, and for an early foray into single malts it's an ideal typical Speysider without too many surprises or curveballs. This one makes for a good palate calibrator, or a mood-setter, and it'd hold up to being thrown into a highball as well. I would say though that it's a little too expensive for where it sits - I'm guessing it's priced that way to help separate it from the same company's Monkey Shoulder blended and the long-standing Glenfiddich 12, which is around $20 AUD less expensive. But this Balvenie should be sitting a little lower if you ask me.

That said, the 12-year old Double Wood is still my pick of the Balvenie core range - yes, even the much-lauded Caribbean Cask 14-year old which has personally never floated my boat. And I much prefer this 12-year old to the overpriced and now discontinued 17-year old, despite that older version being bottled at a more acceptable 43% ABV. Which may be a bit of a surprise, since the 17 is generally well-regarded, but that's how my palate sees it, and it's certainly also how my wallet sees it! 

Cheers!

Ardbeg 8 Year Old For Discussion Whisky Review!

A new Ardbeg named "For Discussion"? Well OK then, if you insist!

An affordable, age statement Ardbeg at a decent strength is always difficult to resist. But I was a little deterred by 2020's Wee Beastie, the 5-year old Ardbeg which some seem to love but I personally found disappointing. Sure, it's OK for the price point overall. But it's the same price as Ardbeg 10-year old, or at least it is here in Australia, and the Ten is still one of the best value core range single malts on the market. Despite being the same strength the Ten offers vastly more depth and complexity than Wee Beastie, and is also one of the more consistent whiskies out there when it comes to the level of quality that it offers. I can see what they were going for with the 5-year old of course; a younger, more spirit-led and smokier expression, and the same approach has worked brilliantly for the likes of Lagavulin 8 vs. 16, but in my opinion Wee Beastie missed the mark, and I suspect just hadn't spent enough time in casks, or at least in the right casks. Other Islay distilleries such as Kilchoman and Bruichladdich are consistently putting out whiskies at similar ages that absolutely eclipse the 5-year old Ardbeg in every category, albeit at slightly higher prices, but then both are made by significantly smaller distilleries. Whiskies of these young ages can be outstanding drams, but it's always important to remember that age is just a number, and that number doesn't necessarily equate to maturity or quality. There are a huge number of variables involved, from the spirit itself to the casks used and just about everything in between, so there's no rule to be broken here. But it's a fact that good quality casks, whether first-fill or refill, play a huge role in the final character and depth of a young whisky, regardless of which distillery produced them. 

Despite all that, when this 8-year old Ardbeg "For Discussion" I was instantly excited to get my hands on a bottle. European reviews seemed mixed, and it was a lengthy wait before stock arrived in Australia - lengthier than usual thanks to COVID, of course. But an age statement Ardbeg bottled at just over 50% ABV, especially one that hits the Australian market at a surprisingly reasonable price - circa $120 AUD, which is quite incredible really - was always going to find it's way through my door. Not only was it sold direct to Ardbeg committee members through Moet Hennessy Australia, it was also released to some retailers, so there certainly seems to be a good amount of stock available locally. There are also semi-official murmurings and snippets (including one from Bill Lumsden himself) that this Ardbeg was fully matured in ex-sherry casks, although I'd say all or at least most of them would've been refill casks - but that's no bad thing, not at all. If true that's an interesting point of difference here, because the flagship 10-year old is fully matured in first-fill and refill ex-bourbon casks, and the last age statement 8-year old Ardbeg that was released, the delicious third "Path to Peaty Maturity" bottling titled "Almost There", was fully matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks. Well actually Almost There didn't have an exact age statement, but it had a year of distillation of 1998 and a year of bottling of 2007, making it a minimum age of 8-years old. There have been a few sherry cask influenced Ardbegs released over the years, such as the venerable but variable Uigeadail, and 2016's Dark Cove, and most of the more recent releases including Wee Beastie and An Oa have reportedly had some sherry casks in the mix - although you'll struggle to find any real sherry influence in either of those. But an Ardbeg that has been fully- and wholly-matured in ex-sherry casks is quite the rare thing, particularly in the form of an official bottling. So this is quite the interesting proposition!

I know I mention this almost every time I review a limited release Ardbeg that comes to Australia, but credit must again be given to Moet Hennessy Australia for releasing this limited bottling at an extremely reasonable price, and for bringing it to the ever-thirsty Australian Ardbeg fans in decent numbers. They could quite easily have charged a significantly higher price (like they do for their older whiskies - the third batch of the 19-year old Traigh Bhan is now $420 AUD), but instead they've kept it at a level where it is affordable for the average whisky enthusiast. Which means more of these bottles will be opened, shared and enjoyed - just as a whisky named "For Discussion" should be! That name by the way harkens back to the early days of the Ardbeg Committee and the plain-labelled committee releases from the early 2000s that are now the stuff of legend, and of course command legendary prices if they do appear for resale. Bottlings such as Very Young, Young Uigeadail a.k.a. "The Oogling", and the pre-release / advance release of Alligator that were far more limited than the more contemporary committee releases and were actually exclusive to the committee's members. The text on the labelling of this new 8-year old, giving only basic tasting notes and little information written in the style of meeting minutes, also harkens back to those early days of the Committee where the booklets were sent out and were written like meeting minutes - they also came with a temporary tattoo, which was actually pretty cool and made for some great pranks! So, an 8-year old Ardbeg, semi-officially matured in ex-sherry casks, bottled at 50.8% ABV - so not cask strength, but definitely nothing to sneeze at. It's also naturally coloured and non-chill filtered, as is the case with all Ardbeg single malts, although sadly the former point is no longer printed on the packaging like it used to be. That's enough discussion, it's time for a dram!

Ardbeg 8-Year Old "For Discussion", 50.8%. Islay, Scotland.

Semi-officially stated to be fully matured in ex-sherry casks, presumably refill. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 

Colour: Pale gold. I'd say one shade darker than the 10yo. 

Nose: Lovely. Fatty & salty smoked bacon, dark chocolate, thick tar, touches of fresh oily fish and spent coffee grounds. Sweet vanilla cream with thick salted caramel and a touch of grilled banana - so make that banoffee pie, but much lighter on the banana than they usually are. Lovely fresh touches of aniseed, gristy (floury) malt, warm sea salt and dried pineapple. 

Texture: Medium weight. Fatty and slightly creamy. Sweet and peaty, well balanced. Very slight heat, very pleasant.

Taste: Sweet, salty & nicely peaty. More salty & fatty smoked bacon but it's verging on burnt this time. Black pepper, thick tar, and that sweet vanilla cream. Salted caramel, ashy peat smoke, dried banana & pineapple around the edges. Lovely smoky, gristy malt and aniseed freshness again, with lightly bitter dark chocolate. 

Finish: Medium-long length. Fatty smoked bacon again, more black pepper, and lovely smoked ham baked with a little honey & orange. Light ashy peat smoke, aniseed again and a slight vegetal / herbal touch. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious Ardbeg! After my slight disappointment with the 5-year old Wee Beastie I wasn't quite sure what to expect here, but this 8-year old is on an entirely different level if you ask me. There's far more depth, more character and a better balance here than its younger core range cousin. For discussion is a winner! There isn't a huge overt sherry influence to be found, but again that's no bad thing - and the smell & taste has me believing the semi-official semi-rumours that it was matured in refill sherry casks. The bacon and ham notes in this whisky already had me convinced, but there's also a shade of Uigeadail here that could be hinting at the source of some of those refill sherry casks. That's our speculation, mind you! The 8-year old is also not as "bright" in style as I would expect from an ex-bourbon cask Ardbeg. They also tend to be quite fruity and less pungent than this 8-year old. 

But that's all guesswork really, at the end of the day what actually matters is the smell & taste of the whisky itself, and there's plenty of both to be found in this dram. This is a great example of a younger whisky that is fresh & lively on one hand, and also mature & characterful on the other. Ardbeg 8 "For Discussion" was an absolute bargain at the original retail pricing, even here in Australia - which is not something we can say very often these days. Let's hope that low pricing and also the good amount of stock means that this whisky is opened & enjoyed and then discussed at length, rather than being flipped on auction sites or collecting dust (like the 19-year old will be at its new price). Let's also hope that this 8-year old Ardbeg isn't a one-off! Well done to Ardbeg & Moet Hennessy Australia. Highly recommended.

Cheers!