1257 Kensington Road NW
1 (403) 283-8000 / atyourservice@kensingtonwinemarket.com
$254.99
A mainland peated malt from Ardmore. Distilled in 2005, matured for 16 years in a Hogshead, and bottled in 2022.
Natural colour, non-chill filtered, and bottled at 51.3% abv
700 mlOriginally written by Evan for a blog post relating to KWM's 2020 Whisky Calendar.
Ardmore distillery was founded in 1898 and was purpose-built to provide whisky for Blending, as pretty much all distilleries were at the time. However with Ardmore that hasn’t changed much – even today just about all of Ardmore’s is still being used for blending, trading stock, or selling.
Only a small portion of Ardmore Single Malt Scotch lands in official bottles released by Ardmore and its parent company Beam Suntory. When it comes to profile and releases, Bowmore and Laphroaig get plenty of attention, being the Islay darlings that they are. Auchentoshan in the Lowlands gets similar treatment. Even Glen Garioch gets more releases, and that is saying something!
One of the reasons Ardmore is the heart of Teacher’s Highland Cream and also sought after by independent bottlers is that just about all of the whisky produced at the distillery is moderately peated. I have only tasted one unpeated Ardmore that I can recall. There is also a lighter peated style that the distillery makes which is sometimes dubbed Ardlair. I suspect some of the Ardmore I have tasted have been this style, which tends to amp up the sweet, creamy and ashy notes of the whisky.