Ardbeg Relaunches 17 Year Old as Limited Edition
Ardbeg Distillery is relaunching Ardbeg 17 Year Old as a limited edition Ardbeg Committee exclusive.
Originally released in 1997, Ardbeg 17 Year Old was one of the first whiskies launched by the distillery after being bought and reopened by Glenmorangie. The bottling became a favorite among the distillery’s fans, but was unfortunately retired in 2004.
To recreate Ardbeg 17 Year Old, the distillery had to break its own rules. Today, Ardbeg expressions are always non-chill filtered and usually bottled at 46% ABV or higher. However, the original release of Ardbeg 17 Year Old was chill filtered and bottled at 40% ABV. As a result, the whisky creation team combined peated and unpeated stock, and tweaked their typical production process to chill filter and bottle the new Ardbeg 17 Year Old at 40% ABV – just as it used to be.
Official tasting notes for Ardbeg 17 Year Old follow:
Nose: Fresh, clean and salving, with hints of pine resin, aniseed, sea spray and lavender soap, the nose is very gentle, very restrained, and rather elegant for an Ardbeg. With water, there is a distinctive, flinty minerality, along with subtle hints of sweet peat smoke, malted barley, and a touch of toasting bread.
Palate: A beautiful, creamy texture is followed by a lovely combination of flavors, with aniseed toffee, café latte, fennel and gentle antiseptic soap. The peat smoke is present, but in a very restrained manner.
Finish: Lingering, with chewy oak, cocoa powder and tar.
Ardbeg 17 Year Old will be available beginning September 24th for a suggested retail price of $189.99.
Source: Ardbeg.