Release of 8334 Bottles | 55% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good Stuff.
TL;DR
A great new take but this one, for me, doesn’t sing like others do
Ahoy Landlubbers!
A perhaps fair criticism was directed at me recently – let someone else review Ardnamurchan on Dramface for once. How can the viewing public get a fair assessment of anything if it’s just one person bleating from the sheep dip about how amazing a distillery is. “All we ever see are 7’s and 8’s.”
I would like to think that a consistency of focus, by one person against one distillery, might offer a bit more insight – someone so close to the output of a place, who resonates with their whisky so deeply, might be the perfect person to pick out something that might not hit the mark. Something that might not be overtly fantastic.
One person’s opinion is just that – one position amidst hundreds, all formed through self-motivation to broadcast what it means to them, the individual. This is what I think, and I commit to the sea of noise what it means to me. I get it, there’s more than one way to skin a Sgiathanach, and having a mix of opinions about a distillery will give a more broad-spectrum overview of what’s going on – Doog thinks this, Drummond thinks that, Wally thinks the next thing. Together those voices form a consensus and soon we have ground swell.
For nearly two years I have ramped up my interest in Ardnamurchan Distillery because, paint me with the guilty brush, I bloody love their whisky. It started with being a bit startled by it, thinking their whisky was too smoky, like a proper bonfire on the wind. But that was pre-peat explosion, where I dunked myself into the actual overtly peated whiskies like Port Charlotte and Ardbeg. Soon after, and coming back to Ardnamurchan, I realised that the harmonious balance of 50/50 peated/unpeated ratio was actually pretty damned interesting – it’s all about perspective: a lightly smoked whisky, yet still eminently coastal was what I discovered post-peat.
Cut to now, where I’m fully enrobed in the world of Ardnamurchan, and I won’t apologise for how it makes me feel. I want to shout about it, because I want other folk to step into this world of integrity and fun, focus and friendship like me, and see how the guys at Ardnamurchan operate. I want them to visit the distillery and see it with their own eyes – once you do you’ll understand everything. It’s endearing in the full sense of the word. It’s helmed by enthusiasts who love the concept of making great whisky for making great whisky’s sake. Aye, they’re a business, obvs, and they’re out and about shouting too, but they go about it so openly and relaxed that it’s hard not to want to be in that loop.
But in all honesty I was feeling like I’d wedged myself in an Ardnamurchan spiral, not wanting to consider other whiskies because I was happy just to bask in the pool of gorgeous whisky blasting from Glenbeg. All my disposable income was shot at the Ardnamurchan target. All I thought about was what other Ardnamurchan I could find. Maybe we all go through this phase? Regardless, with the consistency of output from Glenbeg being as fantastic as it is, and with each subsequent release following in the quality, assurance and confidence as the last, it’s no wonder I wasn’t looking elsewhere.
I’ve wandered into other places – Bruichladdich, The Hearach and Raasay recently, and found really great things in all. Then I’d pour an Ardnamurchan and be reminded of how resonant it is with me, and off I’d go again, digging deeper into the rock face. The ArdnAmerica bottle was a classic example of just how damned excellent Ardnamurchan whisky is, and reason enough to chase every expression they release, if one can afford it. Let it be known that the fact that Ardnamurchan are releasing single strains of a whisky – the Sherry Cask Release, the Paul Launois range, the Cask Strength releases and now the Rum Cask Release – instead of combinations of multiple types of different-previous-contents casks, is a wonderfully simple way to engage with their spirit. Here’s how it presents in x-type of cask. It’s honest too – some will love it, others will not, but that’s ok.
The Rum Cask Release (RCR) was announced and unsurprisingly, I immediately bought it. There’s something about the idea of rum, whether it be the maritime sea captain swilling the rum in his goblet, or the tropical nature of rum as a drink, that makes me excited to find out how that will interface with the coastal magic distillate. I’ve never persisted with rum as a drink – it reminds me too much of my inwardly turbulent aggro-teenage years, where girls were fresh on the scene and we were allowed to consume alcohol legally. Our drink of choice was Captain Morgan’s Spice Rum. Gah, I boke at the thought of drinking it now – I did, in my pre-whisky phase of cocktails and concocting buy a bottle of Pusser’s Gunpowder Proof Rum to try some recipes, but immediately got flashbacks to silk shirts and Brylcreem’d posturing, and handed it quickly off to my brother in law.
Long since donated, my rum interfacing has been zilch. Having heard rumours of a rum casked release and missing out on trying their Distillery Exclusive Rum Cask at the Arisaig Highland Games (they had bottles there but I never got to try them), I couldn’t help but wonder what a rum cask would bring to the Ardnamurchan table – maybe some overt sweetness and sugary loveliness? Maybe some tropical banana magic to offset the salty coastal magic? One more point on the Ardnamurchan research graph regardless.
I got chatting with fellow Dramface writer Drummond at the Bon Accord post Glasgow Whisky Festival, and we got on to the RCR. He mentioned that he’d bought the Distillery Exclusive AD/08.17 CK.592 Rum Cask Finish, that same one I didn’t get to try at Arisaig, and that he’d send me some so that we could both compare the single cask version of rum finished Ardnamurchan and the RCR. As such, he’s weighed in below, not just with the Rum Cask Release, but also that single cask Distillery exclusive.
Review
Limited Release – #76 / 8334, 55% ABV
£75 – still available
Nose
A flatter profile than I’m used to with Ardna – more savoury. Leafy. Really nice creamy smoke in there too. Sour cream and chives. Mineralic and beachy background. Chalky rocks. Sweet sugar water. Gym socks. Peppery aftershave. Saline solution rather than sea salt flakes.
A week later and the peat is powerful – big wafts of rich smoke pour from the glass. It comes and goes, revealing the salty seaside underneath now and again, alongside the sweetness of toffee and maybe even a burnt caramel – a bit sour maybe.
Palate
Ardnamurchan for sure, but has a souring edge to it. Hot too, maybe not Madeira release hot, but I’m still reaching for the dropper quickly. Water in and it’s more manageable – soft sugar surrounding that coastal sandy profile I love in Ardnamurchan whisky. It’s not as sweet as I’d thought it’d be, more green than gold. At the death, a bonfire marshmallow feast wafts down the throat pipe.
It’s 55% but somehow feels thin, but at the same time being hot, too?
A week later and it’s big on the peaty notes – earthy, vegetal, maybe even a blackening banana skin. It’s a flavour that isn’t as richly, sweetly inviting followed by salty rocky madness, as is typical of Ardnamurchan, but instead is a bit more on edge, sharper, some might argue (and have) souring – it’s a flatness. A dulling of the gnarled rocky edge into an ocean smoothed pebble. There’s no nooks to explore or surprising little pips of flavour.
The Dregs
Counter to what might be public opinion I do not drink Ardnamurchan and think it’s all uniformly sensational. The Aberdeen single cask, peated bourbs, was good – half a bottle remaining to be considered. The Tyndrum single cask, unpeated bourbs, was okay. The Good Spirits Co single cask, unpeated bourbs, despite its reputation as being one of the Ardna greats, was good in my opinion. I’ve tried a lot of good Ardnamurchan but I’ve not written about it, yet. Instead I’ve parked those bottles and continued on my voyage of discovery with other places. One day I’ll come back to them and see how they’re doing, compared to my worldview at that point. They might be great. They might not be great, but I try to write whisky reviews when I have something to actually say, when I feel like I am doing the whisky justice and that it has left its mark on me, positively or negatively – a whisky anchor, you might say. It sometimes comes quickly, but often takes a bit more time to really consider what it means to me.
Like today. This is not landing like other Ardnamurchan whiskies have, and at first I thought it was the introduction of the rum casks and their flatly sugary earthiness taking the edge off the whole thing. I’ve been coming back to it for weeks and weeks to see what it actually means to me, in the landscape of where I’m at right now. It’s 55% ABV but feels thin or washy, which is at odds with the viscous maritime dreamboat of Ardna spirit. It has smoke and it has salt and it has sweet and it has rocks and seashells, but it’s enrobed within a thin membrane of alkaline, chalky sugarwash that seems to mask, or maybe more fairly, throttle the whisky and stop it from really singing.
I reckon I have a bit of uneducated disappointment because I thought this would be a tropical zing-fest with robust rum-infused demerara sugar and spice, which would mingle with the inherently coastal character of Ardnamurchan whisky and come together in a blaze of rum-soaked wonderment. However, being a rum expert in as much as I have tried one or two, maybe three types of rum in my lifetime, it’s sometimes not the case that rum presents as this sugary overload. Graeme from Ardnamurchan mentioned in a comment below one of my InstaHoot posts, that some rums actually have a very leafy, green-cast profile and that makes absolute sense when considering the RCR; the casks used for this release must have been doing this particular dance. Ardnamurchan for me sings the loudest when it’s paired with the rich red sweetness of sherry or madeira, or the fizzy sherbet of champagne, or the ex-Adelphi scotch whisky casks of goodness knows what provenance. But rum casks?
A week on and I’ve paired it with another rum cask finished release, but this other one is sweet and rich and sugary. Turning back to the Ardnamurchan, the first thing that hits me is the peat – it’s overt and striking. I wonder if it’s the peat that’s causing the issue for me in this whisky – peat coupled with rum and the underpinning of maritime magic – that’s making it difficult to connect to. There’s been shouts of a souring note at the Glasgow Whisky Festival, and I can see why – the earthy, rich smoke does present as teetering on a thin edge from burning bonfire over to cold morning ashy remnants. It might be the peat. It’s probably a combination of it all. It’s a very rare, very understandable swing and scuff for the bods at Glenbeg, in my humble opinion. However.
As much as this RCR doesn’t live up to my expectations of what a rum casked Ardnamurchan might have been (in my mind’s eye), it’s still objectively a tasty whisky in its own right and I’m really pleased they’ve released it. It reminded me immediately of the Cask Strength black label releases with the balance initially tipping more towards the peated side of the scale, but unlike that balanced beauty, over time the peat has taken control of the RCR. It might not have been the Captain Haddock rich blunderbuss I was expecting, but it’s still more engaging and enjoyable than a lot of the stuff kicking about in Whiskyville at this price point. The blending team have considered this RCR and put it out as another take on Ardnamurchan whisky knowing that it will likely be divisive, and I love that they’re doing these releases. For an Ardnamurchan exciter like myself, it’s always going to be exciting to try new angles on something that resonates so closely, and I’ll always buy it.
As such in the grand scope, against drams like the Loch Lomond XL Fermentation, the Bruichladdich Classic Laddie and Islay Barley 2014, the Raasay R-01.2, The Hearach, Ardnamurchan’s AD Core range from summer 2023 and numerous samples (including that Distillery Exclusive single cask rum finish, which had a lot more punch than the RCR) that I’ve tried alongside this RCR, it still stands as a worthy whisky.
Priced at ~£75 however, it’s around £10 more than their Cask Strength and £5 less than the Distillery Exclusive – both whiskies that land more squarely. I’m glad I’ve tried it, but for now rum finished Ardnamurchan will be a tentative toe dip, rather than a lunge and grab like their sherry based wares. Dramface scoring puts this as a 6 – above average, a solid purchase, but missing that connection that would elevate it to a 7 or 8.
Score: 6/10
