Recently we learned of the passing of former Ardbeg distillery manager, Stuart Thomson. It's very likely, and perfectly understandable, that many of you who have become whisky enthusiasts in the last ten years or so, probably don't know about him. For anyone who was into whisky in the late 1990s to early 2000s, however, you almost certainly would have heard of Stuart through the immense popularity of Ardbeg at the time. 

It is hard to understate just how influential and important the work done at Ardbeg was after it was purchased by Glenmorangie in 1997. It aligned with a time when the cumulative efforts of independent bottlers, fledgling internet communities and cautious efforts by the larger companies all slowly began to tilt people's attention and interest towards single malts. This was a phenomenon that Ardbeg arguably began to lead; there wasn't really another distillery around the turn of the millennium with such a sense of cult about it. 

This can be attributed to a number of things. Its marketing was undeniably important: fun, cheeky, playful, not too serious - these were rare qualities that stood out in an era defined by stuffiness, uncertainty and a general lack of creativity or a sense of over caution about taking new directions. It also helped that Ardbeg was unquestionably one of the great malt whiskies, a true grand cru make that was relentlessly idiosyncratic and, when at its best, forced many people to upend and reconsider their perceptions of malt whisky. The warehouses were full of casks that possessed these qualities, and they were released at accessible prices into a very different, far more innocent market than today's. The effect and influence of the whiskies themselves was vast and continues to this day. But beyond anything else, it was a very special team of people that worked to make Ardbeg a success and Stuart, as the 'face' of the brand was unarguably at the forefront of that. 

Along with Jackie and many other distillery workers who are still there to this day like Emma and Dugga, he was responsible for introducing so many people to the joys of Ardbeg, of Islay and of malt whisky more generally.

Olivier listening to Stuart carefully (WF Archive 2004)

I went to work at Ardbeg as a summer job while I was a student in the year 2005, returning for a second summer in 2006. I had had travelled there in 2004 for a visit, camped at the distillery and been put to work waiting tables while I was there as it was high season and they needed help. This was typical of the kind of thing they did and could get away with in these days - it was very much the wild west. It was fast, sweaty work, hectic, exciting and extremely fun. It was on that trip that Stuart gave me my first taste of whisky straight from the cask in the warehouse: an Ardbeg 1975 fino sherry hogshead. It's hard to overstate the immense influence of an experience like that, at that age and for someone already emotionally invested in, and fascinated by, malt whisky. He filled half a highball glass with a valinch and I sat on the rocks overlooking the bay and sipped this liquid, the like of which I'd never experienced before. Jackie suggested I could return to work the following summer and I jumped at the chance.

With my bottling company, Decadent Drinks, we tend to make a big deal about 'fun'. Fun as a company value, fun as an ambition and objective - fun as important. Hearing about Stuart's passing has caused me to reflect a great deal this past week on just what an inspiration my time at Ardbeg was, just how much of what they strove for involved and was contingent upon, fun. The themed festival days, the tasting events, the food, the BBQs, the seemingly endless churn of visitors and tours, the general 'fuck it it'll work out, we've got good whisky' attitude that accompanied the messy blizzard of human effort and work and sweat that was thrown at keeping everything working and moving along. I increasingly understand now, viewed through the lens of retrospect, that what existed there, at that place and during that time, was unique and utterly special. 

Stuart with Martine Nouet (WF Archive 2006)

We are cynical of marketing, of prices, of stories and of people, often with good reason, but that age of innocence created a space in which something like Ardbeg could exist. That slight sense of lawless fun, the giddy awareness of what you were getting away with and the fact it was hard to believe, even at the time, was quite remarkable. There wasn't, to my knowledge, anything quite like what was painstakingly and meticulously created at Ardbeg in existence at any other Scottish distilleries at the time, and I don't believe there's anything quite like it today.  At its best it made you understand and see with intense clarity why whisky was fun. It was a distillery which could explain the attraction of all other distilleries and whiskies with its fusion of the social with the reflective. A melting pot of friendships, fun and shared physical experiences of beautiful distillate. 

When I arrived at Ardbeg I didn't really know much about whisky at all, bits and pieces at best. I plunged head first into working as a tour guide and I blush a bit to think about all the error-strewn nonsense I probably fed unsuspecting tourists. It was very much time with Stuart that taught me specifics and details, we would sit in the office after hours and he'd answer all of the questions I enthusiastically threw at him. I don't think I ever learned so much about any subject in such a short, intense space of time as those two summers. Indeed, on the other side of that experience I had gathered so many people I am still friends with today (it's where I met Serge for example), tasted and experienced so many incredible whiskies, discovered and learned about old style whiskies and took away the seeds of a 'grow it yourself' career with whisky. Fundamental to all that was Stuart. At heart he was a genuine whisky geek - he had as much passion for Glen Moray distillery as he did for Ardbeg - and he had tremendous knowledge about production specifics and an understanding of whisky on a chemical level which I, and many of us, certainly lack. I owe Stuart a lot for what he taught me, the time he spent with me and the encouragement he very kindly gave me. 

Stuart, very sadly, had a bad relationship with alcohol, and it contributed in the end to him leaving Ardbeg. It was a painful time and a sad way to cut short a career in which he had contributed a great deal to the distillery's fortunes, its future, to its community and to the whisky itself. I won't include any notes with today's post, but I think it's worth reflecting on the character of Ardbeg distillate since 1997 and during the years that Stuart was manager. The fundamental make of Ardbeg, while undeniably different from the early 1990s era and the 1970s before that, remained brilliant in quality. To this day it's a whisky that, when I taste one of the more natural bottlings, un-obfuscated by silly wood, such as the 10 year old, or the recent 8 year old, I am often struck and left baffled that such brilliant, almost aggressively charismatic distillate still shines through. It is a whisky which does not make sense because this kind of relatively simple and modern production process should not yield this richness of personality and level of quality. There is much that is critical to say about how Ardbeg is sometimes bottled and the choices bound up in that, but the resurgent era over which Stuart presided is one of beauty and a legacy that anyone interested in the work of making great distillate should be proud of. 

It was also work done without flair or bullshit. I will never forget the immortal words of one of Ardbeg's distillers who told me: "All that 'art of the stillman' stuff is bullshit! I could teach you how to run these stills in 20 minutes!" There's a lot in that and a rather wonderfully confrontational truth that dispenses with so much of the 'state sanctioned' hyperbole that often flows from the mainstream industry. It demonstrates that whisky making isn't flash or showy and it isn't art. It's really about decision making, judgement and following a good recipe. Something which I think was understood fundamentally at Ardbeg during this time - and by Stuart. 

It was a distillery, and an era, that gives us the ultimate example of that truism which is so often co-opted by bullshit marketing double speak: whisky really is about the people. It's a cliché - but like many clichés it is descended from truth. Stuart was not a perfect person (which of us is?) but I remember his better qualities. That he was fun and humorous, he listened to you when you spoke and was interested to ask questions back. He went out of his way to be generous and kind to me, he taught me a great deal about whisky and was responsible for the kindling of real passion for whisky in many people, both in those who visited Ardbeg and those who he met on his work abroad. He was also an infectious music lover, playing his LPs gleefully at top volume, and when I think about him, it's hard to disentangle him from his love of David Bowie. I also recognised in him a dad who loved his two sons deeply. As a distillery manager he oversaw the production of exceptional whisky and he played a hugely important role in the team of people that helped make it possible for Ardbeg to become the force of nature it has become. 

As time passes, I believe the evident influence and importance of what Ardbeg did for malt whisky culture and enthusiasm in those years under Glenmorangie only becomes clearer and more defined. I am very glad to have been there and witnessed a small part of it, and to share in some of the memories of so many who had their own great experiences at, or because of, Ardbeg and its team.

It is very sad that Stuart has passed away too soon, but he was an important part, and contributed a great deal to, something that made a lot of people very happy - and continues to do so today, led by Jackie and many of the same amazing people that keep the best aspects of Ardbeg alive and beating.