Founders Series: Ardbeg-a-thon
The Founders Series takes advantage of Scotchology’s founders meeting to celebrate our 10th Anniversary in August of 2023. Since we can’t meet in person as often as we were able to when the club first started, we decided to make the most of our time together and sampled a truly broad, exciting range of whiskies in some semblance of batching. The second batch features Ardbeg, a Scottish single malt that for some of us helped kick off our initial love of whisky and an early favorite in the early days of the club. As of this publication, we have reviewed whiskies from Ardbeg than any other distillery. But even that metric quite convey how often we go back to the proverbial well in between reviews or the special place it holds in our appreciation and personal collections.
Ardbeg Anthology: The Harpy’s Tail
Ardbeg launched the Anthology series in 2023, inspired by tales of unbelievable encounters. The distillery’s marketing department has long loved to connect their releases with stories digging into the legends around Islay and of Ardbeg, and the Anthology opens with just such panache. The Harpy’s Tail is a 13 year scotch that is partially matured in ex-bourbon casks and partially matured in ex-Sauternes casks, then combined much in the same way that a Balvenie 12 year Doublewood would be. The actual tail of the harpy in question is told on the box and involves some highjinks around the distillery, even if it involves a creature out of Greek and Roman legends rather than Scottish, it is a creature still said to control storms, something the Scots on Islay would be long familiar with.
Ardbeg Ardcore
With a slogan of “Like Biting a Spiky Ball” emblazoned on the label, Ardbeg Ardcore swings for punk fences with their 2022 Committee Release. The differing factor that makes this particular offering stand out is that approximately 25% of the barley used was roasted black malt, with the remainder being their normal distilling malt. The Committee Releases are named for the Ardbeg Committee, formed after Glenmorangie purchased and reopened the shuttered distillery – originally founded in 1815 – in 1997. This group is a place for Ardbeg enthusiasts to hear of news and other special opportunities, ostensibly so that the distillery never has to face closure again. They are also a fantastic marketing opportunity and released as part of Fèis Ìle, an Islay festival founded in 1986 to celebrate the island’s unique history and heritage within the world of whisky, a now ten-day event that takes place at the end of May.