Ardbeg 5 year old Wee Beastie (2020 US Release)

The world does not need an Ardbeg cluster, and you and I live in that world.

But.

Welcome to two weeks of Ardbeg!

First up, I have this here sample of the only <20yo Ardbeg recent release I've had any interest in, their non-NAS (double negative) Wee Beastie. Though other distilleries have previously used 5-year-old age statements, it's nice to see this from a brand that hurls out NAS releases in a perpetual blur.

Distillery: Ardbeg
Ownership: Glenmorangie Plc (owned by LVMH)
Region: Islay
Age: minimum 5 years old
Maturation: bourbon casks and oloroso sherry casks
Alcohol by Volume: 47.4%
Chillfiltered? No
Color added? No
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

Nice bright barley notes shine through the nose's peat. A mix of cocoa powder, anise and pear juice hides in the background behind a curious meeting of ultra-briny shellfish and MDP-style pickle juice. It feels more like a single unit once reduced to 40%abv, and it gains notes of lemon, mint leaf, basil leaf and a touch of yeast.

The palate is lightly sweet, with minimal mezcal. "Loots of soot and salt," per my written notes. Hints of bitter and tart citrus merge with black pepper and mint leaves in the midground. Just a peep of vanilla bean in the back. It gets sweeter and calmer when diluted to 40%abv, while gaining some grassiness and a good herbal bitterness.

Salt, pepper, soot and tangy citrus stretch out across the warm finish. While dropping it to 40%abv, doesn't change much, other than getting saltier and limier.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This is better than my last two bottles of Ardbeg Ten, which is good news for the Beastie and me. Five years younger and five bucks cheaper than the Ten here in Ohio, the Wee Beastie makes for a much better starter peated Islay than Laphroaig's Select. This Ardbeg isn't going to inspire you to run out and buy a case, but its style is remarkably restrained considering its age and its distillery. A very pleasant surprise.

Availability - Widely available in Europe and USA
Pricing - $40-$50
Rating - 85

Green Spot 26 year old 1991 cask 50776 for The Whisky Exchange

Graced with success, the major Irish whiskey players are handling matters in the exact opposite fashion of the Japanese whisky titans. Irish Distillers and Teeling were prepared for a boost in their industry's popularity, and have lots of well-aged casks (20 to 40 years old) to dish out to their wealthy fanbase. Even Bushmills has their ultra-premium Causeway Collection. Meanwhile, Suntory and Nikka have NASes. The best world is one in which both countries issue gorgeous old whiskies and I can afford them all. This is not that world.

The TWE folks selected this single cask, one which had experienced the sort of maturation antics that could squeeze the harrumphs out of us serious cats. Bourbon cask and sherry cask Irish Pot Still getting re-racked in a marsala cask?! I'm getting the vapors. I've never found marsala + whiskey to be an enjoyable combo...

But, there are three buts. BUT Irish Distillers made port-pipe Redbreast 27 sing. BUT I enjoyed Red Spot 15yo, which had some marsala cask action in the mix. And the final "but" is the cask; an actual butt as opposed to a hogshead, with the greater size potentially allowing for more graceful interactions.

But enough words.

Brand: Spot
Spot Color: Green
Style: Single Pot Still
Country: Ireland
Distillery: Midleton
Age: at least 26 years (18 Oct 1991 - 2018)

Maturation: "It was initially matured in bourbon and sherry casks, before the spirit was reracked into a single Marsala butt for further maturation."
Cask: 50776

Outturn: 576 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 55.7%

Chillfiltered? No
Color added? Probably not?
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

It noses like a super-fruity old Speyside (think Glenburgie or Longmorn). Yuzu, yellow plums and yellow nectarines. Maybe a couple of roses. It's all very buoyant and pretty. Then mild unsmoked cigars ease in, followed by cloves, and it begins to remind me of a much older cognac. It shifts gears again at the hour mark, as an intense toffee pudding (The Sponge) appears in the glass. It's all very overwhelming and I think I feel a song coming on......

Peaches! Fresh peaches, canned peaches and peach candy on the palate. Lemon bars and almond cookies. Hints of those mild cigars and toasted oak spice. Very old cognac notes, again. It's all very silky, yet it still has a lively bite to it courtesy of Irish pot still power.

It finishes with peach crumble, elderflower and gentle toasted oak spice. More fruity and fragrant than sweet, it is all very extensive and lovely and I want more.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This is grand. Imagine having an actual bottle of this! 20 pours rather than one. (That must be why people buy an entire bottle of whiskey.) I used to have a saying that any whisky that costs over $XXX had better be a storyteller. I no longer have that saying because now every whisky costs over $XXX. This Green Spot could be quite the storyteller, or at least leave a person babbling on with poorly phrased disjointed tales like this one. What a thing.

Availability - The Whisky Exchange
Pricing - £500 (can I pretend it's ¥500?)
Rating - 92

Red Spot 15 year old Single Pot Still Whiskey

I ended the Blue Spot review with a tremendously subtle hint about today's whiskey. And I began that review with multiple paragraphs about the Spots. So let's keep it moving.

When Red Spot arrived in 2018, I was like, "Yeah!" And then I was like, "Oh but I live Ohio." And then I forgot about it because scotch scotch scotch scotch scotch. Three years later, someone was generous enough to split a bottle. And so now, here we are.

This excellent label took one drizzle of whiskey
and went from red to green.
Was this foreshadowing?

Brand: Spot
Spot Color: Red
Style: Single Pot Still
Country: Ireland
Distillery: Midleton
Age: at least 15 years
Maturation: a vatting of ex-bourbon barrels, sherry butts, and marsala wine casks
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
Chillfiltered? No
Colored? Probably
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

Plenty of fruit jumps from the nose, though it's more from the casks than the spirit; think lots of dried stone fruits. But it does have a malty layer, somewhere in the middle. Some butterscotch, almond extract and saltwater taffy beneath that. And, of all things, rum cake. It gets quite scotch-like when reduced to 40%abv, specifically like Glenmorangie 18, complete with the active (though good) casks. Vanilla frosting on lemon cake. Dried apricots. Toasted grains and newspaper print.

Simpler than the nose, though well woven, the palate leads with carrot cake (brown sugar, walnuts, cinnamon), oranges and a Thai chile bite. The brown sugar, walnuts and chiles push to the fore with time. Diluted to 40%abv, it picks up some good bitterness, and swaps out the oranges for lemons. Gets a decent mix of sweet and sour.

It finishes with notes similar to the palate — chiles, brown sugar and oranges — though it also develops a slight crème brûlée character. Dropped to 40%abv, the finish is all lemons, brown sugar and cayenne.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

To answer the caption, no this did not go the way of Green Spot. I sort of spell things out above, but like Yellow Spot, this Red Spot feels like an Irish Pot Still whiskey that would appeal to single malt scotch drinkers, thanks to the active casks, a pinch of malt and some proper maturation time. It's not complex by any measurement, but it's a very nice summer and/or dessert pour, and probably the first marsala cask whiskey I've ever enjoyed. But they lost me with the price.

Availability - USA and Europe, frequently sold out
Pricing - $150-$180, though (again) some American retailers are selling it at 2x that price
Rating - 85

Blue Spot 7 year old Cask Strength Single Pot Still Whiskey, US Release

Until now, I've only reviewed one of the Spots, Yellow. There are two reasons for this, one less legitimate than the other.

Though I've never written extensively of the more famous Green Spot, I can tell you I find it the most forgettable of all Middleton's single pot still releases. While the Green Spot brand does have a pleasant independent history, and I did find it quite good when I had it in Ireland a decade ago, something seemed to have happened to the recipe once it became mass-produced and distributed to the United States. I can't prove it because I don't have a sample of the pre-expansion Green on hand to compare to the current bottling. That would be a fun Taste Off!

Lack of actual Spots is the other reason behind their absence on Diving for Pearls. Red Spot wasn't resurrected until 2018, and Blue Spot was reborn in 2020.

I'll make up for this spotty vacancy this week, beginning with the cask strength 7-year-old Blue Spot, which was blended from bourbon, sherry and madeira casks, though actual proportions or potential finish times have not been formerly disclosed by the producer.

I adore the label!

Brand: Spot
Spot Color: Blue
Style: Single Pot Still
Country: Ireland
Distillery: Midleton
Age: at least 7 years
Maturation: a vatting of ex-bourbon barrels, sherry butts, and madeira wine casks
Alcohol by Volume: 59.2%
Chillfiltered? No
Colored? Probably
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

There's plenty of heat and something smoky, like smoldering apples, in the nose. Beneath that darkness swirls a mix of the casks: oranges, cinnamon raisin bread, cherry lollipops and Cow Tales candy. Reducing it to 46%abv doesn't do much. I find flowers, apples, burlap, toasted grains and a hint of ocean.

The palate starts hot, metallic and salty, with subtle sugars and sweet citrus around the edges. A hint of lavender in the background. The salt develops into a defined coastal note. Here the 46%abv reduction works in the whiskey's favor. It has a better mouthfeel, and gains a good bitter herb note. More pepper, less sugar. Hints of vanilla custard, lemon candy and tart apples in the back. It's also picked up more of a young sharp pot still spirit, trending towards the Powers blends.

It finishes with sugar, salt and heat. Clementines, cayenne and dried lavender. It keeps that heat and pepper once the whiskey's been diluted to 46%abv. The citrus gets bitterer, and there's more grain and apple.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Kudos to Irish Distillers for releasing a whiskey with a 7-year-old age statement, rather than going NAS and name dropping a historical Celtic landmark. I also appreciate that this didn't result in a sweet winey blob.

On the other hand, I'm not sure this one's done a-cookin'. The elements don't seem to have congealed in the neat nose, while adding water almost closes it up. Thankfully the palate takes to dilution better, releasing some of the pent-up spirit. The finish doesn't do it for me either way, reading sharper and rawer than its much cheaper blended cousins.

If Irish Distillers offers different Blue batches in the future, I'd be happy to give them a try to see how well the casks play together. But I'm more interested in something like this at say......15 years?

Availability - USA, mostly sold out
Pricing - $100-$120, though there are retailers selling it for $300-$500 because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Rating - 80

I'm waaaaaay behind on Irish whiskies

As a big champion of Irish whiskey my early blogging days, I'm feeling sheepish about how far out of the Éire nectar loop I have gotten. There are new distilleries, countless Midleton products and the Teelings keep charging ahead without Cooley. While it's true I've lost some of my 🍀 whiskey lust from 8-10 years ago, I'm still Irish curious.

While I'm lukewarm about a half dozen or more Jameson products clinking around shelves, there was one new expression that caught my eye. There are more Redbreasts than there used to be, but most of them have age statements. Some single casks from the major producers have snuck onto the market, something unheard of back in my Irish salad days.

Rather than bludgeoning you with an Irish cluster, I'm going to sprinkle Irish weeks here and there throughout the spring and summer, starting tomorrow. And because my Kilchoman cluster prevented me from reviewing an Irish whiskey on St. Patrick's Day, I've been damned near seeing spots...

Concluding the Kilchoman Cluster

(Kilchoman cluster homepage)

Seventeen Kilchomans, all with scores between 81 and 89, have been ingested, each compelling me to regurgitate words about them. That narrow range of scores may disappoint some and bore others, but there are plenty of tales beyond the scores. Of course there are! Blog content!

CASKS

As you may have noticed, there were no alternative casks included among these reviews. No STR, madeira or mezcal(?!) casks. Just bourbon and/or sherry casks, or no cask at all. I wanted to get down to the bones of the Kilchoman spirit and see how it moved across an extended sample size. There were pros and cons to my whisky selection:

Pros:
--A lot of Kilchoman.
--No hyperactive American oak.

Cons:
--Not enough sherry cask Kilchoman (with the Machir Bays showing nearly no sherry influence).
--A lot of repetition between all the bourbon cask babies.

I didn't realize the sherry cask issue until I got to the end of the seven Machir Bays. It was later painfully confirmed when I tried the two very good sherry cask whiskies side-by-side.

BARLEY

Some of my crunchier hipster readers may have wanted more 100% Islays in the mix, and that's valid. That Islay barley makes up 25% of the malt used for Kilchoman's products, so perhaps I should have had 4¼ 100% Islays out of the 17 selections. The reason for falling 1¼ short is because those annual batches remain (for me) the wobbliest portion the distillery's releases. It was difficult for me to summon the interest to get a sample of just one of the batches.

What did interest me about the two different spirits was that the 100% Islay whiskies took to dilution very well (3-for-3), while the Port Ellen Maltings (PEM) spirit did not. Only the two oldest of the fourteen PEM whiskies didn't crumble under slight dilution, and none of them improved when reduced. Could the Islay barley's spirit be sturdier earlier than that of the PEM? It makes one wonder how this will play out over the next decade.

HAPPY

Within the small band of scores — 81 to 89, or B- to B+ — were some positive surprises. The stellar PEM new make spirit demonstrated how Kilchoman gets off to a solid start even before barreling their spirit. My early Kilchoman adoration was validated by the 2013 Machir Bay bottling, as it firmly swatted my bottle of an 2018 release. The two whiskies with the highest scores were the two I am lusting after, the first Machir Bay CS and the 2020 Loch Gorm. One shows off the quality of the past, the other offers some hope about the future.

THE WHOLE PAST AND FUTURE THING

In this cluster's introduction, I wondered if the Kilchoman whisky we were enjoying from 2010-2014 was, in its youth, only hinting at the distillery's potential or if we were already seeing the peak. I truly hoped it was not the latter. But after 17 pours, I'm not convinced their whiskies have improved significantly despite higher age statements and seven more years of production experience.

The 2013 Machir Bay read older and more complex than its elder sibling, the 2018. In fact I'm tired of my 2018 bottle, and it's still half full. The 2014 Machir Bay CS was an utter delight, while I may have been charitable in not giving the 2020 a grade in the 70s, as its cheap-tequila palate dragged it down. The 2010/2019 Vintage had a disappointingly flat palate that read less mature than the 2008/2015 Vintage. As with the 2020 Machir Bay CS, the 2010/2019 Vintage was saved only by its nose. How much longer will that be enough?

Some hope does appear for the distillery's present and future whiskies. They DO have a legitimate and unique 14 year old whisky. And their Loch Gorm is getting better, developing into one of the best standard sherry cask releases on the island. Add in the gradual growth of the 100% Islay releases, and the distillery does have a framework for their future.

It's possible the bourbon cask PEM whiskies present the weakest link in this series. Seeing the decline in Ardbeg Ten — which uses the same PEM specs — in my big 2017 Taste Off makes me wonder if the two circumstances are related.

WHAT NEXT?

In 2019, Kilchoman Distillery expanded its facilities so that they could double their production. Taken out of context it already looks significant. But consider this: Their capacity was 110,000 liters in 2011; it is now 500,000 liters in 2021. That level of success and commitment means one of two things. Either the Willses are in the game for the long haul, with a standard 10-12 year old queued up for the 2030s, or they're getting the distillery in order for a massive payday from a multinational conglomerate. Either way, what's the price on that 12 year old going to be?

That's not just an idle, snarky question. I honestly don't know if I'll still be wacky for whisky in ten years, but I will be mindful of money. After this cluster, I have no interest in chasing down the next Vintage, 100% Islay, any single cask, nor even another Machir Bay. Perhaps I'll go after a Loch Gorm, especially if The Tariff vaporizes for good. But I'm going to leave the Kilchoman fanperson-ism for the new breed of whisky consumers. Cynicism hasn't yet touched their wallets.

Kilchoman 14 year old 2006, cask 18 for Impex Beverages

(Kilchoman cluster homepage) 

We have indeed reached the day where there are FOURTEEN YEAR OLD KILCHOMANS. Impex Beverages Inc stuck their American meathooks into this 14 year old first-fill bourbon cask and hauled it to The States. It was, at the time of bottling, the oldest Kilchoman yet. (The Wills family have released one older cask since then.) That this was the 32nd cask Kilchoman ever filled, and was done so in April 2006, shows that production was slow going in 2005 and early 2006. With its solid outturn of 208 bottles and an ABV of 53%, the cask may have sacrificed only alcohol content to the angels. I've nothing else to add other than I don't know what to expect.

Distillery: Kilchoman

Region: Islay

Age: 14 years (12 Apr 2006 - 12 May 2020)

Maturation: first-fill bourbon barrel
Barley: 50ppm, sourced from Port Ellen maltings

Cask #: 18/2006

Outturn: 208 bottles

Exclusive to: Impex Beverages Inc

Alcohol by Volume: 53%

Chillfilltered? No
Colorant added? No

(from a bottle split)

I have never gotten an Nutella note from a bourbon cask whisky, until now. Yes, the nose has a bundle of other nuts, like walnuts and pistachios, but Nutella sits up front. There are also dried apricots, green grapes, sesame oil and a little bit of honey. This is all very Mediterranean. Except perhaps for the Play-Doh note in the midground. Apples and honey take over when the whisky is reduced to 46%abv. Hints of sesame and nuts remain. A sort of a Korbel brandy note sits in the middle, along with a hint of sharp cheddar.

The palate reminds me of a ultra-minerally white wine, with an almost chalky terroir note. Fascinating. Bits of grapefruit here and there, backed by fruity and bitter smokes. Caramel chews in the background. Diluting the whisky to 46%abv makes it feel younger. There's more bitterness, smoke and cinnamon. Then a good dose of honey and a hint of Play-Doh.

It finishes with limes and minerals and minerals and limes. Just a smidge of smoke, a peppery smoke like a big Talisker. The diluted-to-46%abv finish nearly matches the palate, but improves on it with a better sweetness.

I've never had a whisky quite like this. And since there's a dearth of reviews of it online, I'm not sure if anyone else is in the same spot. The "Mediterranean" style of the neat nose works very well, while the neat palate makes this feel like the first-ever Kilchoman for summer weather. The diluted nose actually works, while the diluted palate doesn't, but that's not surprising considering the findings during this cluster. The solid quality (though not the style) reminds me of first release of Kilkerran 12yo. It may not top all of its younger siblings, but it has its own confident approach that should be taken seriously by fans and competitors.

I wouldn't have minded digging into a full bottle, but the price was beyond what I'd consider reasonable for 14 year old whisky. Yes, it's a "historical" bottling. But every year will bring at least another "historical" bottling, and thus the quotation marks will always remain.

Availability - Sold out, or mostly so
Pricing - $200-$240
Rating - 87