Ardbeg 29 yo 1967 / 1996 Kingsbury #923 52% vs Ardbeg 28 yo 1967 / 1995 Signatory #574 dark oloroso 53.2%
Ardbeg 29 yo 1967 / 1996 Kingsbury #923 52%
This is a thick soup of flavour. Bags of richness next to mountains of smoking peat. Dry and tannic, and frankly quite exceptional. Black tea, liquorice, tar and char, tobacco, black mushrooms and smoked ham. It’s also deeply medicinal with cough syrup and some dark amaro. The delicate balance between giant flavour is precise. On and on with sticky date pudding, walnut candy and a whole spice cabinet. Black smoke from burning bonfires on sand beds. Finally, on the palate the peat truly comes into its own though there’s less of the sea here, swallowed up by the gargantuan sherry and peat. 93 pts
Ardbeg 28 yo 1967 / 1995 Signatory #574 dark oloroso 53.2%
Similar and it’s not surprising. Though less rich and showing a bigger phenolic base perhaps. Overall this is tighter and a touch more muscular. And we are rather looking at acorn tea, unsweetened liquorice, some sort of herbal ointment made of medicinal barks, gentian and eucalyptus. Pine charcoal, engine oil and working coal ovens. Swap out that amaro for a hardcore Fernet and the soot and wood char has been left to build up. Smoke and peat is again monolithic with tar and black oils, dried roots and withered seaweed. Notable difference though, is that the tannins here are quite overflowing, like over steeped black tea, which make 923 seem better on the tongue. Surely a mere question of preference. 93 pts
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