It's a bit of a long-winded name, but for those of us who know what the words "Golden Promise" mean, it's a very exciting one! We'll get into more details below, but let's just say this new series from Ardnamurchan is very... promising!
This is the first bottling in a new series from Ardnamurchan Distillery; their Heritage Barley releases promise - OK, I'll stop now - to be very interesting bottlings! This series is going to consist of sporadic releases distilled from superseded and/or renowned barley varieties, starting off with what is easily the most revered variety among whisky geeks like us; Golden Promise. The Golden Promise barley strain was developed in the late 1950s and commercial use began in the late 1960s, and through the 1970s and 1980s it made up the majority of spring-grown barley planted in Britain through the 1970s and 1980s.Spring barley is preferred by brewers & distillers over winter-grown barley thanks to higher levels of starch and lower levels of nitrogen, resulting in better yields or spirit per tonne of malt. The popularity of Golden Promise began to dwindle in the early-1990s when it became more specialised, and then all but disappeared from commercial whisky production. Over the last decade it has been distributed by one malting company, Simpsons, who acquired the exclusive rights to the plant variety in 2015. Thanks to its flavour and textural differences Golden Promise is rumoured to be largely responsible for the success of big names like Macallan and Glengoyne, who historically both used this barley variety exclusively, but reduced their use gradually and now don't use it at all. It's worth noting too that both distilleries were exclusively using ex-sherry casks at the time, which is also no longer the case. Golden Promise is now quite rare in whisky in general, and is more common in the craft brewing industry, aside from the occasional special release from distilleries such as Benromach, Yamazaki, and now Ardnamurchan. Apparently the latter has been using Golden Promise barley for one month of each year since 2018, so we'll be seeing more Golden Promise Ardnamurchan in future!
The main reason that a barley variety falls out of favour is being superseded by newer strains that have been developed to give improved alcohol yields per tonne, and/or that have been engineered for better disease & parasite resistance and therefore better survivability. For the farmers Golden Promise typically yields 30% less tonnage per acre than more modern varieties, meaning less income for the farmer, although older barley strains like Golden Promise and Maris Otter do attract higher prices. Golden Promise is more susceptible to fungal parasites than newer varieties of distiller's barley like Concerto and Optic, which have more recently been superseded by Sassy and Diablo which have improved disease resistance in comparison. These more modern varieties generally offer higher alcohol yields (litres of spirit per tonne of malted barley) for the brewer & distiller, meaning less grain is required overall. Commercial (particularly corporate) malt whisky distillers typically aim for 400-litres or more of spirit per tonne of malted barley, and a distiller choosing to settle for a lower yield, whether that is by choice of barley variety, yeast variety, choice of equipment, or distillation methods, is essentially only doing it for one reason: flavour.
The big barley-in-whisky question is just how much difference the variety used actually makes in the final bottled product. It's a hotly debated topic and a controversial one; those who only use the cheaper & more readily available barley varieties say barley variety makes very little difference, while those who specifically use more expensive & specialised varieties say they do make a worthwhile difference. And much like chill filtration and added colouring, most of those who choose to employ these practices don't openly talk about it, while those who avoid them are happy to discuss it with their customers. Barley varieties are still quite a niche subject in whisky, much like yeast, but both are becoming more widely discussed and experimented with at the smaller, more flexible, and more progressive distilleries. Obviously there will be less discernible differences in barley variety in a whisky compared to those found in beer, since the un-hopped "beer" (wash) used in whisky must be distilled at least twice, and must then be aged in casks for years before it actually becomes whisky, so the impact of the grain itself may be diminishing at each stage. The counter-argument is that both the brewing stage and first distillation run are creating flavours, while the second distillation run is selecting the desired flavours and capturing and concentrating them, and the cask can then subtract undesirable compounds (subtractive maturation), add desirable compounds (additive maturation), and alter & evolve other compounds (interactive maturation). Regardless it seems logical that any step where more and/or different flavours can be created will always be beneficial. Just like the old catchphrase "whisky gets 60-70% of its flavour from the cask" (another contentious subject where most modern distilleries disagree), that certainly doesn't mean that the remaining 30-40% isn't important and the quality of your new make spirit doesn't matter. It is absolutely crucial, especially when bottling younger or when a more spirit-driven flavour profile is desired.
Which brings us to Ardnamurchan. The Ardnamurchan Peninsula is as far west as you can go on the Scottish mainland, and it's almost the same travel time to drive north-west from Glasgow to Ardnamurchan than it is to drive from Glasgow to Oban and get the ferry to the Isle of Mull, and then another ferry to Ardnamurchan. The distillery opened in 2014 under the owners of independent bottlers, and the first whisky release was officially launched in September 2020. That first release was a breath of fresh air at the time, being a large batch of 16,000 bottles and priced very reasonably. This is a small distillery with an annual capacity of 500,000 litres of spirit, although they aren't yet producing close to that number. Of that spirit output 50% is unpeated and 50% is peated, generally to 30 ppm using mainland peat, but there is some 80 ppm spirit maturing in the warehouses. This first release in the Ardnamurchan Heritage Barley series is entirely unpeated, and was distilled from 100% Golden Promise barley grown in Fife and malted at Bairds in Inverness. It was distilled in 2018 and matured in ex-bourbon casks, and bottled at 59.2% ABV at 6-years of age. Naturally it's non-chill filtered and natural colour. Aside from a couple of older Macallans and Glengoynes that I've been lucky enough to try years ago, which were from a different era so there are other factors involved, this is the first contemporary 100% Golden Promise single malt that I've tried, and it'll certainly be the youngest and the most spirit-driven. Exciting stuff!
Ardnamurchan Heritage Barley Golden Promise, 6 Years Old, 59.2%. Highlands, Scotland.
100% Golden Promise barley, unpeated, distilled 2018, bottled 2025, matured in ex-bourbon casks. 10,290 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.
Colour: Very pale gold.
Nose: Young, fresh (verging on raw), dry-ish, totally spirit driven as it should be. Dry cereal grains: oats, barley flour, touch of floral notes. Sweet pear juice, sugared almonds, fresh sweet stone fruit - nectarines, peaches, apricots. Breathing time brings porridge, lime cheesecake, and malt biscuits.
Texture: Medium weight. Oily, creamy, a little raw, but sweeter on the palate than the nose. Slight heat.
Taste: Syrupy entry with those sweet stone fruits (nectarine, peach, apricot), green chilli flakes, sweet pear juice, green peppercorns, lime cheesecake, malt biscuits. The lime gets sharper as it breathes, turns into lime marmalade (which is delicious, by the way!).
Finish: Medium length. Green peppercorns, oat cakes, candied lemon peel, lime marmalade. Syrupy sweet with slight floral notes, touches of yeasty & creamy (lactic) notes.
Score: 3 out of 5. Close to a 3.5 though.
Notes: It's a bit "rough & ready" and a bit raw, definitely not one to pick as an introductory dram to Ardnamurchan, or for an introductory dram in general. This one is for the geeks & nerds like us, purely showing off as much of the unpeated & unadorned golden promise barley, and the distillery's spirit character, as possible. Can I tell the difference that the golden promise has made? Probably not, but experience of this barley variety is limited - and most of the "classic" examples like older Macallan & Glengoyne were sherry cask matured anyway. But this one is certainly very oily & sweet, and very malty, quite fruity too which I don't think is coming from any cask influence since there isn't much at all here!
The bonus dram!
This second review is the second release of a 10-year old official bottling of Ardnamurchan, which is now going to be an annual small batch release with some variations in the recipes. This latest 10-year old is very different from the first AD/10, which was released in late 2024. That was an unpeated single malt matured in both ex-bourbon and ex-Paul Lanois sparkling wine casks, bottled at 50% ABV, and consisting of 16,700-ish bottles. This second iteration was released in late 2025 and is down in ABV to 46.8%, has been matured in 98% ex-bourbon casks (54 barrels) and 2% ex-sherry casks (2 hogsheads), and consists of 16,380 bottles. But the crucial difference here is that this second release of a 10-year old official Ardnamurchan is peated, with 48% of the vatting being distilled from barley peated to 30 ppm, and the remaining 52% being unpeated, so this is a completely different whisky to the first 10-year old. Australian pricing on this second 10-year old release is substantially lower at $135-140 AUD while the first was $160-170 AUD, although there's recently been a change of local importer which would also be a factor in Australian Ardnamurchan pricing. Both 10-year old bottlings have been labelled as AD/10, but the first had a white label while the second has the dark blue label pictured below, plus the lower bottling strength of course. This just happens to be the oldest peated Ardnamurchan official bottling released so far!
Distilled 2014 & 2015, 48% peated spirit, 52% unpeated spirit, matured in 98% ex-bourbon and 2% ex-sherry casks, bottled 2025. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 16,380 bottles.
Colour: Pale gold.
Nose: Sweet, bright, citrusy & peppery. Loads of lemon oil, candied lemon peel, icing sugar, touch of rock melon (cantaloupe) around the edges. Malty too. Earthy peat poking through, dry, earthy & ashy peat. Coconut ice fudge, melting salted butter, honeycomb (cinder toffee).
Texture: Medium weight. Syrupy, earthy, no heat.
Taste: Surprisingly peaty after the nose, with a dry, earthy, ashy peat. Very "mainland" peat but less of the wood smoke element. Black pepper & roasted spices underneath. Burnt honeycomb (cinder toffee), lemon oil again but slightly less citrusy here as the peat is more assertive. Coconut ice fudge again.
Finish: Medium length. Coconut ice, pinch of sea salt, more candied lemon peel. Icing sugar, biscuity malted barley, and white pepper to finish.
Score: 3.5 out of 5.
Notes: More balance and complexity than the Heritage Barley, also lighter in flavour though despite the 10-year old having half peated spirit in the batch. I have to say to my tastes this second iteration of a 10-year old Ardnamurchan doesn't hold a candle to the first, which was unpeated and bottled at 50% ABV. But this is an annual small batch release now, so it's not a fair comparison to the first 10-year old which was a special dram, and it'll be great to see what the distillery comes up with for each release. The amount of character in the Ardnamurchan spirit is just fantastic; I've certainly never had a boring Ardnamurchan, and I don't think such a thing exists. Despite these regional terms meaning less & less these days, there's undeniably something very highland & very coastal about these whiskies, and despite the relatively young distillery their products are always readily identifiable. Which is exactly what we want in a single malt!
On a slight side note, I hope Connal, Alex, Jenny, and the team keep up their current style of social media posts and marketing activities - along with the quality of the whisky of course. They're both brilliant, and they're both working!
Cheers!
Extremely interesting review. Please keep up the good work. Thanks.
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