Dr. Scotchtagon presents: Ardbeg Corryvreckan

I’m a big fan of Ardbeg.  The distillery is on Islay, the South coast to be precise and produces the characteristically peaty whisky that one would expect.  Ardbeg is owned by LVMH, which is obviously known for its champagnes more than its excellent whisky portfolio, but it is also known for its excellent gift sets.  It was in one of these gift sets that I purchased the standard 10 year Ardbeg, which is very good if you like extremely smoky Scotch, along with two higher end expressions from the distillery being Corryvreckan and Uigeadail (pronounced Oog-a-dal).  It is names like these that convince me that sometimes the Scots are just trying to make up names that are impossible to pronounce.  Tonight I’m going to try out the Corryvreckan because I’ve had a few already and it’s easier to type.

Corryvreckan is named after the third strongest maelstrom in the world, in case you’re an uneducated idiot and didn’t know that and is obviously located in the gulf of the same name.  In Scottish mythology, the hag goddess of winter, Cailleach Bheur, uses the gulf to wash her great plaid.  I didn’t make that up.

It doesn’t have an age statement on it.  The age statement in Scotch is not required, but if it is provided must be the youngest whisky in the bottle.  It’s becoming more common for companies to sell pricier no age statement whiskies now, some of which are quite good.  Also, younger whiskies are also being sold at higher prices on occasion.  For example, some versions of Octomore are aged 5 years and still fetch prices close to $200 a bottle. Even when there is no age statement, all the whiskies in the bottle are required to be at least three years old.  Ardbeg was mothballed in 1982, but was revived by Glenmorangie in 1997, so they may not have a lot of old stock to work with.

This is bottled at 57.1% ABV, so you’re getting a lot of extra bang for your buck.  You’re going to want to add some water to this one because without it, there’s just smoke and burning.  With some water, it really opens up, tastes citrusy, like a pineapple that someone lit on fire, with brown sugar.  It’s really complex and hard to put my finger on the individual flavors that make it so good, but seems sweeter and heavier than the 10 year old Ardbeg.

On second thought, I know exactly what it tastes like:

Fantastic.  I’m giving this one a 157 out of 158.3