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Thursday, January 23, 2025

Ardmore 11 year old 2012 Cadenhead for Campbeltown Malts Festival 2024

For the past 17 years, the Campbeltown Malts Festival has been held without me in attendance. I intend to brave the onslaught of whiskies from Springbank, Glengyle, Glen Scotia, and Cadenhead at least once during this lifetime. Until then, a bunch of my friends will continue to enjoy the fest annually, reporting back upon their return.

During this year's festivities, two separate friends each purchased today's Ardmore without conferring with each other. That factor, plus the "Ardmore" on the label, leaves me intrigued by this single malt's potential. Cadenhead gave the cask one of the bottler's increasingly-frequent double-maturations, with a Madeira hogshead completing the duties for about six years. I like Madeira, and it often works well with Scotch, depending on the distillery. How about Ardmore distillery?

Distillery: Ardmore
Ownership: Beam Suntory
Region: Highlands (Eastern)
Independent Bottler: Cadenhead
Age: 11 years old (Aug 2012 - May 2024)
Maturation: ~5 years in an unknown hogshead, then ~6 years in a Madeira-seasoned hogshead
Outturn: 252 bottles
Exclusive to: Campbeltown Malts Festival 2024
Alcohol by Volume: 55.8%
(thank you to Apemen Wheat for bringing this bottle to our year-end Scotch Night!)

NEAT

Young mossy peat mixes with apricot jam and orange marmalade in the nose, with jasmine blossoms in the middle, and sweaty socks in the back. And it works, somehow. The palate offers sweetness (nectarines) on top, peatness (kiln) in the middle, and tart (citrus) on the bottom. There's also a Sauternes (not Madeira) note in the background. It finishes with louder smoke and tartness, and a bit of that Sauternes note.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or 1¼ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

Now there's young farmy peat in the nose. Hay, grasses, and grains. Rye bread and a vanilla cream pastry. The palate has gone the wrong direction with lots of wine and woody bitterness. It finishes with bitter ash and sugar syrup.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

When neat, the whisky's elements remain aligned. When diluted, it gets weird, and not Fun Weird. When neat, the whisky and its double maturation make sense, and the Madeira cask seems to have been dumped at the right time. When diluted, the whisky reminds me of the vast majority of wined-up whiskies which never worked right. When neat, it's a very good whisky. When diluted, it's not.

Availability - Probably sold out
Pricing - ???
Rating - 84 (when neat)