Single Malt Report: Ardbeg Taste Off (part 1 of 3) - Ardbeg Ten

(Since I'm traveling, there probably won't be more than three posts this week.  That all depends on the quality of the Blogger app on my Android phone...)

By reading this post's subject heading you'll know the matter being discussed this week.  If you're an Ardbeg hater, please return next week.  (And if you are an Ardbeg hater, whattsamatta you?)

I will often exhalt the little indy distilleries while simultaneously poopooing the multinational conglomerate Big Whisky.  It's not that I'm anti-capitalistic, it's that I chose to support small businesses.   They tend to have closer contact with their products and more direct relationships with their customers.  They're also more likely to provide something exciting because in order to succeed as a small business one needs to deliver a product unique and/or better to the market.

Then there's Ardbeg.  Ardbeg is owned by Glenmorangie Plc.  Glenmorangie Plc is owned by Moet Hennessey -- a multinational luxury behemoth.

But I am smitten with Ardbeg anyway.  Why?  Because they've taken their ownership's capital allowance and invested it in exploring malt whisky's potential.  It has resulted in a considerable (please don't call it a cult) following and consistent critical raves.  Personally, I've yet to meet an Ardbeg whisky that isn't a terrific adventure.

On Friday, I experienced significant tumult in my writing career.  So I thought it best to mark the occasion with a Taste Off that I'd been anticipating for some time.  An Ardbeg Taste Off.

From Left to Right:
Ardbeg Ten (Part 1)
Ardbeg Uigeadail (Part 2)
Ardbeg Corryvreckan (Part 3)

Each glass held approximately 30mL (about 1 fl oz).  Each was sampled neat.  First, after a 15 minute wait.  Then a second time, another 45 minutes later.

To begin...

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ARDBEG TEN

Distillery: Ardbeg
Ownership: Glenmorangie Plc (Moet Hennessy)
Age: minimum 10 years
Maturation: ex-bourbon barrels
Region: Islay
Alcohol by Volume: 46%
Phenols: 54ppm
Bottle Code: L10 165 12:47 6ML

Yes, I have reviewed this whisky before.

That was in a dark bar, whisky in an open flat tumbler, on a rockin' night.  The notes I'd taken were minimal, the rest of the review was from spotty memory.

Today's NEW report was done in a controlled setting, at home.  The Ten was in a great glass, lined up with other Ardbeg whiskys to compare and contrast.  And these Taste Offs are my favorite whisky experiences because they really allow me focus and explore.  No Taste Off takes less than 90 minutes.

That bar experience happened in late October last year.  Three weeks later I bought a bottle of Ardbeg Ten from K&L Wines.  I opened it almost six months ago and am now down to the final dram.  It's always been fun and my opinion of it has grown gradually.  It's not chillfilltered, probably without caramel coloring, and bottled at a good 46% ABV.

Time for tasting.

Round 1 -- neat, 15 minutes in the glass before tasting

As you may note from the first picture in this post, the color is the lightest of the three -- where Pinot Grigio meets old hay.  The nose starts with fruit bread / fruitcake, then a rush of wet peat.  There's cinnamon, docked fishing boats, and a bonfire in the distance.  A lovely (to me) sooty peat hits the palate first, then rich honey.  Ultimately, it's a bakery full of sweet breads, fruit tarts, and cakes.  That bakery note continues into the excellent finish.  Then peated lemons, maybe a little candied, and a rummy pound cake.

Notes:  It's a peated lemon cupcake.

Round 2 -- neat, at least 45 minutes after the first round

The nose has become much sweeter now, like a rich spicy pudding along with some banana bread.  The peat has eased off, but an oceanic note has emerged further.  The peat soot remains in the palate, well merged with cinnamon toffee syrup (Ed.: that's not a thing).  There's cane sugar or maybe peated rock candy.  The sweets stick around the longest in the finish.  There's some chimney smoke, brown sugar, and honey.

Final notes:  I read recently that at 54ppm, this is the heaviest peated regularly available single malt.  That rings somewhat true on the nose and palate, but it blends so well with a multi-faceted sweetness and a bunch of bakery notes that the peat is no longer the lead characteristic.  Ardbeg Ten may be a heavy hitter but it's not overwhelming.  If you like its neighbors Laphroaig and Lagavulin, you probably won't mind a sip of this.

Availability - Many liquor stores
Pricing - Higher than most 10yrs; Great at $45 or less, don't pay over $55
Rating - 91

Single Malt Report Standings as of June 23 2012

Hope your weekend is going well!  If not, this should put a smile on your face:

To the standings!

(My methodology uses pageview counts from three different sources in an attempt to suss out which posts are spammer heavy and which ones are getting the real clicky traffic.  Then I apply a very (not) sophisticated algorithm.  And from that I get a Top Ten.)

SINGLE MALT REPORT STANDINGS AS OF 6/23/2012 (out of 77 posts):

#10 Powers Gold Label (Blended Irish Whiskey) -1
Powers slips to tenth.  Things are getting closer in the 11th and 12th spots.  A new entry may rise bythe end of next month.

#9  The Macallan 18-year-old Single Malt -1
"My cat's breath smells like cat food." -- Ralph Wiggum

#8  Millstone 8-year-old French Oak, Dutch Single Malt +2
Its slow results the previous week were reversed as more people are clicking for windmill pics.

#7  The Macallan 12-year-old Single Malt -2
Oof.  Mac12 slips.  Results are very close between 9th and 6th place, so there may be a lot of movement between those slots.

#6  Lauder's Blended Scotch Whisky +1
Lauder's ascends again, for reasons totally unknown.

#5 Chivas Regal 12-year-old Blended Scotch Whisky +1
Not only did it challenge fifth place, it is now significantly ahead of any challengers.  Though it'll be some time before it reaches #4.

#4  J&B Rare Blended Scotch Whisky NC
This one's staying put for a while.

#3  The Glenlivet 15-year-old French Oak Reserve Single Malt NC
She'll be treading water for the foreseeable future.

#2  The Famous Grouse Blended Scotch Whisky NC
The answer to last week's question.  The Grouse is the Thunder, not the Heat.

#1  Glenfiddich 12-year-old Single Malt NC
Glenfiddich's second wind continues as it separates itself considerably from #2.

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BIG MOVERS

UP
Bulleit Rye Whiskey zooms up 13 rankings, landing at #38
Strathisla 12-year-old Single Malt zips up 9 spots, now at #36
Powers 12-year-old Special Reserve also jumps 9, now at #41
Michael Collins Irish Blended Whiskey hops up 7 spots to #35
Kilchoman Summer 2010 Release Single Malt (hooray!) jumps 6 spots, landing in 29th
Glen Spey 21-year-old 1988 Single Malt (hooray!) jumps 5 spots to 23rd

DOWN
Bad week for Vegas and Laphroaig
Vegas 2012 edition, part 1 of 4 drops 7 spots to #46
Vegas 2012 edition, part 3 of 4 (includes, amongst others, a Laphroaig) falls 7 levels, now at #47
Laphroaig 18-year-old Single Malt drops 6 rankings, landing at #31
Blanton's Single Barrel Bourbon dips 6 spots to #32
Laphroaig Quarter Cask Single Malt falls 6 spots, knocking it the edge of the top 50.  A damn shame because it's a spectacular whisky.

NOTES
The Top Twenty is a great mix of whiskies.  In order:  Scotch single malt, American rye, Scotch blend, Canadian blend, Scotch single malt, Japanese single malt, Scotch blend, Scotch "vatted" blended malt, Irish blend, Scotch single malts.

BAD PREDICTIONS FOR NEXT WEEK
As may be derived from the standings and movers data from the the last few weeks, the Top Ten and Top Twenty are stabilizing.  Most of the extreme Ups and Downs happen in the lower rankings due to how closely they sit, view-wise.

Predictions?  That won't change much next week.  Though it would be nice to see a strong rookie or one of the Top Twenty surge up to break through the Big Ten.

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Thanks again to you all!  I'll be back next week with some good 'uns.

Friday Night

Had a odd turn of events in my personal life...

So I decided to do an Ardbeg Taste Off

It vaporized all Sense and Reason

Once I figure out how to frame this in complete thoughts the reports will be promptly posted.

Seriously, Shabbat Shalom.

Happy Friday!

Woke up at 6am this morning to go for a run.

F**k.

How'd I ever do this every morning for three years?

After that, I've got nothing left today, so here's the week's recap.

1. Wedding anniversary
2. Kitchen remodling finished
3. Guests from Sweden stayed with us for three nights.  With baby!
4. Interview with employment agency.
5. Started running again. (See above)
6. Basketball season over.
7. No new Mad Men. :-(
8. Still not paying attention to the election.
9. A truck driver was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence for stealing 180 bottles of Hankey Bannister.  Why?  Just make him drink the Hankey.  That's punishment enough.
10. Zing!
11. And finally, I'm starting to thin out the collection of DVDs I've amassed over the years.  Have plucked 20+ of 'em from the bunch.  May rid myself of more.  If I could sell off my CD collection, I'd do so as well.  Too bad I threw away everything except the discs.  Craigslist here I come!

Finally, may all your weekends be like this:

GREAT beer. (Source)

Single Malt Report: Oban 14 year old

Distillery: Oban
Ownership: Diageo
Age: minimum 14 years
Maturation: refill American oak hogsheads
Region: Western Highlands
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Oban 14 has long been a favorite of mine.  Once I'd tried the Johnnie Walkers, the Glenfiddichs, the Glenlivets, the Glenmorangies, and The Macallan 12, my next step was Oban.  My fall down the single malt rabbit hole quickened from there.

I've probably bought more bottles of Oban 14 than any other single, despite its often unfortunate pricing.  My current bottle came from an unanticipated purchase last December when I found a bottle that was considerably mispriced.  Sadly that liquor establishment has since learned of and corrected its error.

I opened the bottle more than a month ago and have since been trying to figure out how to report on it.  I mean, I am so familiar with the whisky that taking tasting notes became a profound challenge.

It's like trying to describe the sky......It's blue and it's up there.

COLOR

Unlike the sky, Oban 14 isn't blue, but its color is screwy.  Here's a crummy picture that I took yesterday of the liquor in the bottle:

That's the color.  To establish why it is "screwy", let me take a step back and explain the whisky a bit.

The Oban spirit is not aged in ex-sherry casks which provide dark maple syrupy and reddish hues.  It is not aged in first-fill bourbon barrels that provide light golden tones.  Instead it is aged in hogsheads (more than 50% larger than normal bourbon barrels) that have previously held maturing whisky.

So the whisky doesn't have an enormous amount of contact with the oak.  The oak's tannins have been previously incorporated into other whisky.  And the spirit hasn't aged that long in the oak to withdraw darker tones.

So the color should be even lighter than Laphroaig 10's.  Something along the lines of chardonnay with the faintest gold highlights.

Now take a look at that color in the photo above.  That pigment is due to a heapin' helpin' of artificial coloring, aka caramel e150a.  Diageo adds the coloring because it makes the whisky look lovely.  But it's an industrially-designed food additive.

There's a debate in the whisky community about whether or not this dye can be tasted in the palate.  I personally don't know.  It just bugs me because the colorant is unnecessary.  It's like a beautiful young woman getting botox treatment.  You don't need it, Baby, you're gorgeous already!

NOSE AND MOUTH

Here's where I get back to the good news.  Because the oak isn't bourbony or sherried, because the oak has been previously used, what we taste and smell when we sip Oban neat is (mostly) the spirit itself.  There are some oak notes and water has been added to bring the whisky down to 43% ABV, but that salty peppery creaminess is its very malt.  The sturdy spirit not only survives the colorant and filtration and water but it thrives.

Some notes:

NEAT
The nose is salt & malt first.  A little oak, but no bourbon.  A bit of an ethyl prickle.  Salted caramel candies.  Not quite a whisper of smoke, but rather a memory of smoke.  And if you let it sit for a while, an oaky buttery note does form.

The palate is sweet on the start.  Caramel (the sauce, not the colorant).  Toffee.  Apple flesh.  Salty, but within reason.  Pepper rather than smoke.  Substantial creamy texture.  So adding that all up (salt + caramel + cream), it's almost dulce de leche, but also totally not dulce de leche.  Let's just go with the salted caramel candy.

WITH WATER (approx 35% ABV)
The nose logically gets lighter.  Very malty and bready.  A little oak develops with time.  Some gin-like herbals.  And if you sniff really deeply you may find some fruity sweets in there.

The palate becomes very fresh and clean.  Creamier, fruitier.  Less of the salted caramel.  A hint of notebook paper.  But the spritely malt spirit remains.

THE FINISH

Yes, I left the finish out of the notes above.  Why?

I once heard two women moan when the Oban finish hit.  Yes, the good kind of moan.

Amen.

Oh, so you want actual finish notes?  Here's some vagueness for you.  When neat, Oban 14 has a very hearty finish.  Sweet but not saccharine.  Feels like the natural sugars from the malted grain.  And it lingers for a good amount of time.  Adding water quiets it down, bringing out some of the saltiness.  But the sweet note still lingers on.

THOUGHTS

I'd last tried Oban 14 several months before I started these single malt reports.  So there's been a considerable amount of whisky sampling since.  My experience hasn't necessarily lowered Oban 14 in my esteem, just changed it a bit, laterally.

I love experiencing its coastal spirit.  That finish is terribly enjoyable.  And the whisky is like an old (inanimate) friend.  But I have found others.  Other grand spirits, some challenging some easy some warming some thrilling.  So when my Diageo boycott begins next summer, I will be ready to move on.

But maybe one more bottle before then.

Availability - All liquor specialists
Pricing - Not great.  Clynelish 14 (another Diageo single) is $10-$20 cheaper.  If you can find Oban at $60 or less, grab one.  If you find it for more than $70, look elsewhere.
Rating - 88

Wedding Anniversary 02

Two years ago today.

Kristen and I really only celebrate our anniversary on March 13th, the start of our relationship.  Last year, it seemed odd to hit the reset button after seven full years together.  But June 20, 2010 was the most joyous day we've shared, especially since we were able to experience it with so many loved ones.

Life has been a trip ever since.  I'm forever blessed to be sharing this adventure with her.

Single Malt Report: Oban 18 year old (2008 release)

Distillery: Oban

Ownership: Diageo

Age: minimum 18 years

Maturation: refill American Oak ex-bourbon hogsheads

Region: Western Highlands

Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Limited Bottling: 1315 out of 8778

Ah yes, Oban, the odd little gem sitting at the southwest tip of the Highlands, overlooking the lochs near the isles of Mull and Jura.  It's Diageo's second smallest distillery (capacity 670,000 liters).  And despite Diageo's claims that their company is not in the business of making single malts, all of Oban's malt whisky goes into......single malts.  And it's a good thing too.  Of all Diageo's single malts, Oban is their best seller in the United States.

But enough about the Imperial Empire, let's talk about this rebel.

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THE DISTILLERY

In a small town bearing the same name, the Oban distillery faces the loch inlets from the ocean.  Some believe that's where its malts' oft salty character comes from.  Its water sources run through mossy hills which may provide the faint peaty note that some folks pick up in the whisky.  Oban matures its spirit in refill American hogsheads, which are more than 50% larger than regular bourbon barrels, but half the size of sherry butts.

The distillery was founded in 1794 by John and Hugh Stevenson. It was originally established to be a brewery the year before, but quickly switched to whiskymaking. The town of Oban, built up around the distillery, stayed tiny until it grew into a major port and railroad center in the late 1800s.

Oban distillery stayed in the Stevenson family until 1866, when it was purchased by Peter Cumstie.  Then after buying Oban in 1883, James Walter Higgins gradually dismantled and reconstructed the distillery without much of a pause in production.  In 1898 a consortium, which included future jailbirds The Brothers Pattison, took over.  After the consortium went under, Buchanan-Dewar bought what remained (including Oban) in 1923.  Buchanan-Dewar later became part of Distillers Company Limited, which in turn became part of Diageo several decades later.

In 1979, Oban released a 12 year old single malt.  In 1988, their main malt became the 14-year.  A limited cask strength 32-year was released in 2002, then a very limited cask-strength 20-year followed in 2004.  A fino sherry-finished distiller's edition (reviewed briefly here) comes out semi-annually.

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THIS WHISKY

In 2008, Oban released this 18 year old exclusively within the US market.  There were 8,778 bottles in the batch and (a bit curiously) it's still relatively easy to find in the LA liquor specialist shops.

From the moment I'd heard of it, I was pretty excited to try this one.  I was even considering saving my pennies to buy a bottle outright...

But on Robert Burns Day (January 25th) this year, I found myself at The Daily Pint.  And at The Daily Pint, I found a bottle of Oban 18 year.  A full, unopened bottle.  I paid a bit of a premium for the pour, but it was the freshest drop in the bottle (and it could save me $$$ in the long run).

Since I'm VERY familiar with its younger brother, I found myself making mental comparisons between the two quite a bit.

NEAT:

Color-wise, it's where light copper meets apple juice.  A little caramel e150, perhaps?  The nose is dusty, musty, musky, with bourbon / oak sweetness.  There's some citrus (more grapefruit than orange) throughout, with a maple syrup note after a long wait.  The palate is very mild and smooth -- apple juicey, malty, with vanilla and hay.  Its finish changes character into cream and coconut milk with vanilla custard.

WITH WATER:

The nose sheds most of its characteristics retaining bourbon oak and malty notes.  The vanilla pudding note enters the palate along with some molasses amongst the creamy texture.  The finish remains the same.

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It's quite the polite teenager.  Very mellow.  Aficionados may even consider it an aperitif.  It's an easier malt than the 14-year, with the younger sibling's saltier edges mellowed by four more years in wood.

If you like Oban 14, then you'll probably like this.  If you like challenging or intense whiskies, then this might seem too quiet and (almost!) Lowland-like.  As far as my tastes go, I have similar feelings towards this whisky as I had to the Laphroaig 18yr versus its younger brethren.  The 18-years both have a genial grace, but I prefer the strong character of the younger malts.

That does not make this a lesser malt.  In fact, it's damned delicious and can be found at a reasonable price.  It all depends on palate preference.

Availability - Some liquor specialists (US only)
Pricing - Excellent! at $80, still pretty decent at $100
Rating - 86

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This THURSDAY, I'll be posting about a single malt that has garnered four separate report requests.  I'll leave it a mystery for now, but there were plenty of hints in today's post...