Ardbeg Twenty Something 23 yo 46.3% vs Ardbeg 14 yo 1994/2008 Cadenhead 58.3%
Brand new ‘groovy’ Ardbeg is out and I’m playing catch up with Twenty Something, which is really actually 23 years old…
Ardbeg Twenty Something 23 yo 46.3%
Pre notes conclusion: Best recent Ardbeg release in a LONG while.
Nose: A precise Ardbeg from the days before the ultra huge and heavy Ardbeg style you find in things like Uigadeal. This one speaks of a loud coastal-ness, hot ash, bitumen or tarry ropes, peat oil, sea lashed moorings and muddy nets after a catch. Wrinkled lemons, fisherman’s friends, mentholated rubs. A real briney fruits de mer. Also a fair dose of wood with these leather, cream and vanilla notes, which give it a teaspoon of fatness, and maybe an ounce of sweetness lurking under all that.
Palate: Menthol rubs and jujubes, hot ash, white smoke, glowing embers, sea water, flints, wet wool, wet wood, mud caked boots, preserved lemon, seaweed, getting really salty. This coastal style is really quite sublime. Lemon pith and hot ash. Beautiful style, the sea speaks to you.
Finish: Smoke ash, coast, salt lemons.
Ardbeg 14 yo 1994/2008 Cadenhead 58.3%
(photo: whisky online auctions)
Nose: Same period but 10 years younger and it shows, with less maturity, less rounded edges, but more brazen – it’s sharper, showing more salted lemons. Very coastal. With sharp dill and clean brine, more ash and smoke to the fore, more peated malt bins, a bigger funky sea soaked sweater. Yet again both are much in the same camp, not exactly a huge peat monster, but its does sing of bonfires and the sea. Minimal wood influence makes this one very cutting and ‘chiselled’ – I am beginning to like this word a lot.
Palate: It’s all there coming in thick and hot: No need to elaborate but – Big sweet peat, hot ash and glowing embers, smoke, menthol rubs, smoking malt, salt lemons, cold sea air. Excellent make from an excellent period of Ardbeg.
Finish: Long, menthol, lemon, smoke and brine.
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