Distilled October 1972     Bottled November 2001     Sherry Cask     227 Bottles

Bottled for the PLOWED Society 

Nose: Peat and honey

Palate: Sweet hay, white wine and then a deep, dense peat.

Finish: Peat that goes on forever.

Really wonderful, well balanced, impressive.

Here it is, the legendary and mysterious Ardbeggeddon. Man, was I excited to taste this. And you know what? It's indeed mysterious in ways I didn't expect.

The nose is just a dank, earthy, peaty smoke. Kind of antiseptic and great -- and that completely attacks the palate and expands in a shockingly excellent way. Big medicinal stuff that's sort of minty and herbal, surprising and altogether bizarre yet wonderful.

The only thing that keeps me from going full "A" on this is that it's very dry, a tinge of sweetness would be welcome.

Though the PLOWED veterans joke that this may or may not be the actual cask they selected (mixups with matching casks to samples are not unheard of in such endeavors), it's regardless a choice completely fit for a group of obsessive malt aficionados. Different and, as I said, altogether bizarre yet wonderful, and Ardbeg.  A-/A

Agreed with Adam.  Very dark musty notes (diesel engine) that dominate but in a good way.  Lots of brine (fishermans village), smokey burning coals with delicate floral notes.

Plowed Vertical retaste:

Grungy disiel with dirty peat and oil. Lots of preserved fish and brine. Charred oysters and pig fat. Some licorice and kiwi. Images of smoking fish with peat bogs.  

n:  Miraculous, cinnamon fest

p:  Sweetened charcoal and honey cinnamon. 

I tried this once before, long ago in a not-so-taking-notes-friendly environment.  My recollection was that it was good but not great.

This tasting had a great deal of build-up for this botle so I was anxious to re-try it.  The nose was extremely well balanced with all of the earthy peat that 1970's Ardbegs have.  Any peaty harshness was cleaned out by the nearly 30 years in wood.  However, to me....and I stress "to me" ... the taste was underwhelming. It was much more subtle than the nose was indicating.  Again,very well balanced and very good.  It just didn't get to the stellar level that hype tends to portray. I like a bolder/bigger malt.  This seemed - dare I say it - thin......

Don't get me wrong here....It is a very solid and excellent malt.  I would not ever turn this down and if this was readily available, I would certainly want to own it.  The rarity alone makes this a fine whisky.  It just doesn;t quite make it into the A category for me.

N: Beautiful kick of lemon & malt, plenty of background smoky peat, extremely faint rubber and light fruitiness.

P: Fantastic smokiness with a bit of iodine. Nice malty notes, again that faint rubberiness, light cinnamon. A nice BBQ-esque touch.

F: Light smoke, malt, touch of smoke.

Solid. For me, a near-perfect Ardbeg. My notes (unintentionally) as written used the word "beautiful" first on every aspect. In a night of PLOWED bottles, this was the clear winner for me. 

The only thing dissapointing about this Ardbeg was that I couldn't get better notes for it. I guess it left me breathless and at a loss for anything. It was certainly my favorite PLOWED bottle of the evening. 

The nose is "like a dance of campfire smoke and fruit".

Palate: "Glorious smoke candy - yummmm." (precisely 4 "m"s)

The finish was a little short, but the subtle flavors still linger a bit. I think at this point I was just sad that it was over....until I had more.

Just incredible. Wow!