Ardbeg Launches Heavy Vapours
Ardbeg Heavy Vapours has been announced as 2023’s Ardbeg Day limited edition bottling.
Held annually on the final Saturday of Islay’s Festival of Music and Malt (Fèis Ìle), Ardbeg Day is a global celebration of all things Ardbeg. This year, the event falls on June 3rd and festivities are set to take place at the distillery, online, and at Ardbeg partner bars and retailers around the world.
Ardbeg Heavy Vapours is the distillery’s first whisky ever distilled without a purifier – the apparatus on the still responsible for maintaining Ardbeg’s balance between extreme peat and floral fruitiness. This experiment by Director of Whisky Creation, Dr Bill Lumsden, has allowed the heaviest and untamed vapours to rise up the still during the distillation process, before being captured, matured and bottled.
Official tasting notes for Ardbeg Heavy Vapours follow:
Nose: Smoke rises with a cloying sweetness. Intense, pungent and aromatic, a distinctive farmyard scent drifts, along with a crunchy aroma, like creosote or tarry rope. A splash of water disturbs the vapours and dark chocolate cream billows, laced with a ribbon of smoked artichoke.
Taste: Ardbeg’s untamed darker flavors and notes have risen. A burst of bittersweetness surges, disturbing ashy coal dust and casting a haze of cardamom, peppermint and coffee grits. Clouds of dark chocolate and mentholic eucalyptus roll in, obscuring the fruit and floral notes usually found at the heart of Ardbeg. Wisps of aniseed twists, cinnamon balls and antiseptic lozenges float on the palate.
Finish: The aftertaste lingers long and bold.
Ardbeg Heavy Vapours is bottled NCF (Non Chill-Filtered) at 50.2% ABV for the Committee Edition and 46% ABV for the general release. Ardbeg Heavy Vapours Committee Edition will be available beginning April 17th for a suggested retail price of $157.99 and the general release will be available beginning May 1st for a suggested retail price of $131.99.
Photo credit: Ardbeg.
Source: Ardbeg.