Ardbeg 10 yo (46%, OB, 1 litre 'For Duty Free Sale Only', L22244ML14 52)
  I find the L codes rather muddling sometimes, given this is one of the old foil caps that spin, I would guess this is a 2002 rotation? I'm sure there are many L code warlocks out there who will give us a more accurate reading… Colour: pale white wine. Nose: this reeks of early 90s Ardbeg, and is exactly how I remember the 10yo from those years when I was tourguiding at the distillery. Lots of sharp, chiselled peat smoke, lemon rinds in brine, smoky grist and wort aromas and yeasty tangs. Gorgeous distillate, that does something more intriguing with peat smoke than just pure ash and seawater. Mouth: deeply fat, tarry and full of seawater, tarred rope, iodine and wet pebbles. Mineral salts and softer, slightly herbal-accented peat smoke underneath. Some preserved lemons too! Finish: long, salty, tarry and full of gutsy, fattened peat smoke! Comments: not all the early batches were terrific, and in fact I think there's arguably higher average quality and consistency in the 10yo today, but this one is a total winner. I had a 2003 bottling at 89, but this one edges it I feel. Feels only right to bring this one along with me this weekend… 
SGP: 367 - 90 points.

Ardbeg 22 yo 2000/2022 (53.4%, The Whisky Exchange 'Celebrating 50 Years', barrel, 243 bottles)
There's a new and extremely impressive set of bottlings out from The Whisky Exchange celebrating the fact that Sukhinder and Rajbir have been selling fine bevvy since they were in short trousers. Other casks in this parcel have been generally excellent if occasionally on the woody side in my experience, but let's see… Colour: gold. Nose: a little tight at first, on some dusty oak, smoked mushrooms and then these very lovely olive oil and tar resin combinations, also fir wood and other resinous and aromatic things. The peat feels as though it has begun that lovely sub-dividing journey into many smaller, tertiary complexities. With water: putty, wormwood, old ointments, furniture waxes and that oh so classical tarred rope. Mouth: wonderfully on pine wood resins, natural tar extracts, green herbal liqueurs and things like dried mint, eucalyptus and smoked herbs. Blind you might even think of a particularly heavy Talisker with all these nicely assertive peppery and coastal aspects that come through secondarily. With water: still on herbs, peppery notes and tar, but with more peat and wood spice together now. Camphor and hessian touches too start to emerge. Extremely good! Finish: long, spicy, tarry and full of these wood oils, resins and herbal extracts. Comments: excellent, probably my favourite of this parcel of barrels thus far. And rather a different take on Ardbeg which is fun. 
SGP: 566 - 91 points. 

Ardbeg 10 yo 1999/2009 (57.5%, Chieftains Choice for German Chieftains Society, cask #114, barrel, 228 bottles)
Colour: pale straw. Nose: superbly briny, limey and lemony! Also charred grapefruits, crisp peat and bonfire smokes, smoked sea salt and pure tar! With water: old hessian cloth, lapsing souchong tea, iodine and cough syrup! Stunning purity and power. Mouth: like drinking kiln smoke eau de vie! Wonderfully dense and tarry smoke with smoked oysters, soy sauce and black olive paste. Recalls some similarly aged 70s distilled Ardbegs. Becoming increasingly medicinal and tarry with time. With water: lots of salted liquorice, seawater, camphor and even more tarry rope vibes! Old creel nets and pickling juices mixed with lemon oil! Finish: very long and densely on pure tar, kiln peat smoke, raw seawater and lemon juice. Comments: deadly! 
SGP: 467 - 92 points.

Ardbeg 25 yo 1976/2002 (53.5%, OB, for Velier, Single Cask, sherry butt, cask #2396, 492 bottles)
I have great memories of when about half a pallet of the now fabled 1972 single cask for Velier came back from Italy to the distillery. Fun was had. Colour: amber. Nose: pure tar, old rope and iodine! If you distilled 1970s Ardbeg you might get 1976 Ardbeg… what makes these bottlings so special is that immense distillate paired with some sublime and outstanding salty old sherry casks. Really focussed on the most intense salted Dutch liquorice, polished shoe leather, salted treacle, umami peat smoke billowing from the kiln and aniseed distillate with tiny notes of paprika and smoked fennel. The power, concentration and immensity are just amazing. With water: it adds a fruitiness now with dried citrus peels and spiced marmalades, smoked dark teas, camphor, fir wood resins and eucalyptus mixed with black olive brine. Mouth: dense, tarry, feels like the texture of hessian in the mouth, an almost granular combination of smoked sea salt crystals and peat ashes. Menthol extracts, wormwood, natural tar, seawater and smoked mead. So much going on and with such fantastic power and precision of flavour. The saltiness combined with the deep and raw peat flavour is breathtaking. With water: a totally glorious, cohesive whole. All flavours and satellite aspects of this profile fuse into one perfect blob of '70s sherried Ardbeg'. Finish: hugely long, on salted almonds and walnuts, anchovy paste, black olive, further tar extracts, bitter dark chocolate with smoked sea salt and the finest cured meats. A masterpiece in sherry and peat, with an aftertaste that glows with crystallised citrus fruits and smoked teas. Comments: A whisky where so much is happening simultaneously that it is really impossible to pin it all down and provide more than a collection of cluttered snapshots of what is happening. I would argue that these single casks from Ardbeg helped to alter the direction and pace of whisky culture; tasting this again now, it's not hard to understand why. Monumental, swaggering and utterly brilliant whisky. 
SGP: 567 - 94 points.  

Ardbeg 30 yo 1975/2006 (40.9%, OB, cask #4699, bourbon, 121 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: the naturally low abv reveals a lot of the undercarriage of this historic distillate here. Many softer things that feel like they had a lot to do with peat smoke in the distant past, things like bergamot, lightly smoked teas, wintergreen, cough syrups and some very fragile ancient herbal liqueurs. Also dried rose petals oddly enough. One of the most delicate 'old' Ardbegs I would say. Mouth: again, very much of delicate herbal ointments, medicines and liqueurs. Some tea tree oil, camphor and suggestions of resinous fir woods and a rather extractive hint of peat. Finish: medium, lightly peaty, sappy, still very herbal and teaish with some wee leathery touches in the aftertaste. Comments: probably would have benefitted from being bottled around 10 years earlier. I wonder, was this one of those casks that got 'visited' rather regularly in the warehouse by - ahem - 'tourguides'…? 
SGP: 455 - 86 points. 

Ardbeg 29 yo 1975/2005 (44.7%, OB for Islay Festival 2005, cask #4719, ex-fino hogshead, 188 bottles)
I remember very well this one came out as a pair with an ex-oloroso 1975, I think I preferred this one at the time, but I don't have the Oloroso to hand to compare. Colour: deep gold. Nose: I am sure this has evolved since bottling. I do not recall it being this syrupy and herbal and rather liqueurish. Stunning notes of salted almonds and liquorice, an oily vibe to these ancient peat notes, lemon verbena and eucalyptus! Stunning and with beautiful poise and concentration. Mouth: wonderfully salty, herbal and cohesive on arrival. Like some old gentian eau de vie mixed with green Chartreuse. Putty, pine wood oils and camphor galore! There's a simplicity in some ways, but when the flavours are this glorious and this direct and beautiful, that's an asset. Finish: long and fantastically salty, herbal, resinous and tarry! Comments: probably a little more 'evolved' than I remember it after being freshly bottled. A stunningly salty, Fino-accented old Ardbeg. 
SGP: 367 - 92 points. 

Ardbeg 31 yo 1974/2005 (51.8%, OB for UK, cask #2751, bourbon, 141 bottles)
Colour: deep gold. Nose: I am sure all these old OB single casks from these years are evolving positively in glass. The sense I have, once again, is of greater concentration and alignment around these stunning herbal, tar resin and liqueur qualities. This one brings to mind much, much older bottlings of peated malts from decades previous, such as 1940s bottled 10yo Highland Park for example, with these deeply tarry, earthy and stunning complex peat aromatics. With water: gains remarkable complexity with impressions of shoe and metal polishes, soy sauce, umami seasonings, tarred wood and touches of peach and grapefruit. Mouth: the earlier Provenance bottling but plus extra layers of syrupy peat, pepper, wormwood and tar liqueur. Iodine, tiny sooty notes, earthy wood smoke and camphor. Huge whisky and totally stunning! With water: still hugely punchy, resinous and salty, but also fattier now and more decisively on menthol tobacco, camphor and pepper. Finish: long, hugely tarry and salty, with a kind of drying, waxy peat that glows in the aftertaste. Comments: at times rather brutal or even monolithic, but this is a deadly serious and utterly magnificent old Ardbeg that's still a smouldering athlete at 31 years. 
SGP: 368 - 93 points. 

Ardbeg 31 yo 1974/2005 (52.1%, OB for Oddbins, cask #2752, bourbon, 133 bottles)
After I finished at Ardbeg for the summer in 2006, I came back to Glasgow and worked at Oddbins - where there were still bottles of this one on the shelf and managers scratching their heads about how on earth they were going to sell them. Oddbins is another name that holds a very special place in my heart with many great memories of my time there - case of Super Bock anyone…? Colour: deep gold. Nose: a saltier one! Pure, vivid coastal freshness, with smoked sea salt, wet driftwood and beach bonfire smoke drifting all throughout. Quite amazing the distinct separation between these two sibling casks. With water: amazing evolution, towards tarmac and pickled shellfish stuffed into the pocket of a mothballed old Harris Tweed jacket - sorry, I came over all SMWS there! Mouth: funny how it cleaves closer to its sibling here, with these wonderfully syrupy herbal tones, cough medicines, aniseed, fennel, old tar liqueurs and iodine drops. Molten salted liquorice with gentian eau de vie! Huge whisky, once again! With water: settles into bog standard, huge 70s Ardbeg brilliance. Tars, concentrated and peppery peat, wood smoke and various herbal ointments, liqueurs and smoked teas. Finish: in the words of George Harrison: long, long, long! With many hessian, medicines, tar and sooty peat notes. Comments: I prefer its sibling's more profound, no nonsense power and precision, but this is still high flying, glorious old Ardbeg. 
SGP: 467 - 92 points. 

Ardbeg 32 yo 1974/2006 (54.5%, OB for Germany, cask #3326, bourbon, 110 bottles)
Colour: deep gold. Nose: a level even higher. Once again intense power and precision, but also bringing in those utterly gorgeous syrupy and herbal liqueur qualities by the warehouse load. Brimming with notes of spearmint, eucalyptus, dried out old tar liqueur, iodine, mothballs, roof pitch, salted almonds and hot brake pads! Rather dazzles your nostrils with 'Ardbeggy stuff'. There's also feelings of stunning aged dry whites such as chenins or rieslings. And let's not forget hessian and some gloriously pure and subdivided old peat smoke. With water: crystallised citrus fruits, smoked olive oil, putty, shoe polish and more of these outstandingly sharp and chiselled dry white wine vibes. Mouth: immediate, mind melting and orgasmic. Staggeringly salty and with an intensely powerful combination of peat and tar. Some kind of peat molasses with lemony kipper juice, pure iodine and lashings of camphor, lamp oil and earthy peat smoke once again. One of those whiskies you could spend all day just listing ideas of flavours as they pop into your brain. With water: a deep, resinous and highly complex smokiness that involves many kinds of smoked tea, dried herbal notes, umami seasonings such as Maggi, iodine again - more of everything really. Did I mention tar? This whisky has well and truly grabbed the wheel - where the hell are the anti-maltoporn brigade! Finish: outrageously and almost embarrassingly long, salty, tarry, immensely peaty and utterly perfect! Comments: there are experiences to be had at the KitKatClub or the Berghain that are less extreme than this. A whisky that is almost more about the sheer force of physical experience than just flavour. 
SGP: 478 - 94 points. 

Ardbeg 31 yo 1973/2004 (49.3%, OB, cask #1143, bourbon hogshead, 216 bottles)
This one was released at the distillery and it's another that I remember very clearly arriving. I remember we opened the first bottle to try it and were left pretty speechless at the time. This was in the days when about 30% of each cask would generally find its way into 'tasting stock'. Colour: bright straw. Nose: I think the 1973s always got a little lost in the 'noise' surrounding the 74s, 75s and 76s, which is a shame as I think you could say it's the fruitiest of those vintages and capable of being every bit as stunning. That's certainly the case here with gorgeous layers of seawater, grapefruit, smoked olive oil, those familiar tars and wood resins and pristinely crisp salty and mineral notes. We cannot help but think of perfectly mature, great dry white wines again. I would finally add there's a gorgeous underlying sootiness to this one as well. Mouth: the concentration and cohesion is just gorgeous and so immediate! Fat, oily, luxurious peat smoke, studded with black pepper, iodine drops, bandages, citrus fruit piths and peels, powerful notes of tar extracts and beautifully intricate herbal teas and liqueurs. A profile that feels rather like an 'old Ardbeg montage'. With time it gets tarrier, ashier, fatter and more mineral with this stunningly fresh and brittle saltiness. Finish: über long and stunning once again, with a powerful resurgence of these extremely chiselled, mineral and precise and dry white wine notes that make you think of chenin blanc or Sancerre. Comments: I'm so pleased to be able to try this one again, many great memories. And it remains indisputably a brilliant old Ardbeg that both stands apart from, and measures up to, those more celebrated later vintages. 
SGP: 467 - 93 points. 

Ardbeg 1964/1996 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail 'Connoisseur's Choice')
Let's remember, the 1960s at Ardbeg could be quite a different - although not necessarily inferior or superior - kettle of malt from the 1970s. Colour: pale amber. Nose: very much '1960s Ardbeg' in that this is a softer but rather 'darker' style of peat smoke. Quilted, deep, drying and herbal with a wonderfully resinous and salty accent from the sherry, then roots, tar, peppery phenols and softly earth tobacco notes. Some soft liquorice and smoked fennel seeds beneath all that. Even at 40% these old Ardbegs can be so impressive. Mouth: dense, sooty, peppery and drying peat smoke. Although here the 40% starts to feel slightly problematic. It is still nicely herbal, softly spicy and rooty with an undeniable 'old style Ardbeg' flavour, but perhaps just a little lacking in power. The sherry component brings some slightly fruitier notes of orange throat lozenges and smoked citrus teas. Finish: a good length with a rather treacle-y peat smoke quality, more peppery notes, a little soft waxiness and star anise. Comments: on an emotional level, this is a thing of fascinating fragility and slightly faded beauty; on a technical level it has undeniably been diminished by the bottling strength. The main thing you cannot help but wonder upon tasting these old G&M CC bottlings is: what was it like at cask strength… ? 
SGP: 554 - 89 points. 

Ardbeg 30 yo 1967/1997 (50.3%, Signatory Vintage for USA, cask #1141, oloroso sherry butt,  510 bottles)
Colour: mahogany. Nose: perfect integration of sherry and peat, which has formed a single and poetically beautiful identity that is simultaneously singular, but also immensely complex. If you wanted to really try and pick it apart you could mention such things as: root beer syrup, various medicinal herbs and roots, wormwood, camphor, sawn rosewood, furniture oils, pipe tobacco, soy sauce and an increasingly assertive, stunning salinity that involves salted almonds, salted liquorice and musty, funky dunnage earthiness. With water: cherry blossom, ancient tar liqueur, smoked sea salt studded in the darkest of chocolates - you get the picture. Mouth: a whisky that plays tricks. An immediate blast of syrupy, chocolatey, smoky sweetness, that does a screeching handbrake turn towards deeply earthy, drying notes of cured meats, tobaccos, walnut liqueur and fir wood resins. One of these perfect examples of peat existing in a myriad of sub-divided, fragmented and tertiary forms. Quite frankly, it's astonishing, it shouldn't work, or arguably even exist, and yet, here we are. With water: I don't really know what to say, just perfection. Finish: seemingly endless and verging on phantasmagoric. Comments: a philosophical whisky, put upon this earth to help you better understand beauty (ok, ok, get a grip Angus!). 
SGP: 477 - 96 points.

Glenforres 12 yo 'All Highland Malt' (43%, OB, 1980s)
Supposedly this is Edradour, from before Mr Symington took it over and 'adjusted' things for the better. Colour: pale gold. Nose: damp grains, cardboard and a suggestion of soapy dishwater. Also some plastic and plasticine impressions. Bad feelings here… Mouth: most definitely dreadful. Dishwater and detergent and hot plastic and wet cardboard. Some sweetness and some sort of mildly putrid honey in there too, but we are really reaching to find some - any - kind of redeemable feature. Finish: short in some ways, but there is just this most horrid soap in the aftertaste. Abusive and just foul. Gargling the dishwater from a Scout camp. Licking pigeon shit off a rusty Volkswagen bonnet. Comments: really, unequivocally, impressively atrocious whisky; it must take real talent to produce such a monstrosity. At times you think it isn't as bad as it is, but then it just kinds of sets in and becomes fully awful. Induces ennui to coagulate in your soul like gristle. 
SGP: 430 - 15 points.