Ardnamurchan AD/09.20:01 Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml) - Batch 01 Inaugural Release

Note: Product has come from a private collection and as such has some minor scuffing/scratches/handling marks. Actual product not pictured.

Remember those odd slate grey bottles with hydrometer-shaped windows?
Not even yet whisky, they were the first Ardnamurchans - completely over subscribed in Europe and now a thing of the past. The day has finally arrived that sees the first release of single malt proper from the Ardnamurchan distillery. The first allocation proved demand to be just as high.

Created from a 50:50 split of unpeated and peated spirit using 65% ex-bourbon casks and 35% sherry casks, the resulting whisky offers a captivating amalgam of honeycomb, waxy peel, oyster shells, winter strawberries, black pepper and bonfire embers. It's dry and bready in the opening passes, then more definitively coastal and peaty. Young yet already complex, mouthfilling and shrouded in mezcal-like smokiness while hinting at dried grass, white pepper, caraway bread and brine. Subdued malt sweetness carries the finish. Even better after extended air contact, this is a style that will threaten its Campbeltown cousins for coastal superiority in years to come.

The bottle comes equipped with a QR code that allows you to access the blockchain technology which provides the entire provenance for the whisky. It's more information than most will want - or ever need. It's also a demonstration of complete transparency - an approach that may encourage other distilleries to follow suit.

Here's a taste of what you get: Ardnamurchan's whisky starts with Concerto barley grown in West Fife - the rest supplied and malted within Scotland. The mashtun water is heated by a biomass boiler using wood chips from sustainable local forestry. Once the wort is ready it gets transferred to the washbacks for fermentation. (The draff left over from the mashing is mixed with the evaporated pot ale and makes a nutritious animal feed for the local farm). If you ask any distillery that ferments in wooden washbacks what style of washbacks are best, they will tell you wooden ones are best. If you ask a distillery using stainless steel washbacks the same question, they will tell you stainless steel is best. At Ardnamurchan they've opted to use both styles: four wooden ones, two made from oak and two from Oregon pine, and three made from stainless steel. Distilled using traditional copper stills, the wash still holds 10,000 liters and the spirit still, which has a neck with a boil ball for extra reflux, holds 6,000 litres. To turn the spirit vapour into liquid, a standard shell and tube condenser is used, unusually located outside the building. New make spirit is cut at around 75% ABV to 63% using water from the Glenmore Spring before filling the casks... If you're still not satisfied, you can access another level of detail by clicking the QR code for a complete field-to-bottle journey. But don't get too distracted, this inaugural release is expected to go fast. 15,950 bottles are on offer worldwide.

Other reviews... So their inaugural genuine malt whisky, always a moving moment. It seems that this is a five years old, so not just a three-years-old-and-one-day boosted in STR or PX (or Laphroaig), and that it’s a blend of the distillery’s peated and un-peated makes, matured in 2/3 ex-bourbon and 1/3 ex-sherry wood. Now that we know everything, let’s proceed… Colour: light gold. Nose: I rather like this feeling of ‘single-blended malt’, with its freshness, the wee farmy side from the peat, the notes of stewed rhubarb with a little juniper, these touches of aquavit and then these maritime aromas, as well as this rather unexpected oriental side, between incense and orange blossom water. Almost forgot to mention mirabelle eau-de-vie (but we still make the best in Alsace, haha…) Mouth: clearly ‘a peater’, as as always, the peaty party is having the upper hand. There are hints of strawberry yoghurt, not unseen in fresh peaters, a combination of aromatic herbs (thyme, tarragon) and some kind of spicy mead perhaps. Touches of caraway and sweeter wholegrain bread, gingerbread, speculoos... All that with a solid, rather creamy texture. Finish: pretty long, rather on a spicy/honeyed smokiness. Did anybody ever try to smoke gingerbread? The aftertaste is more on a classic citron/brine/smoke combo. Comments: this impressive young baby improves a lot with oxygen. Let them breathe! Can't wait to try these when them too are eleven. 46.8% Alc./Vol.
86 points - Serge Valentin, whiskyfun.com

* Special thanks to John Raphael for generously sharing his bottle.