2024 got off to a smoky and tasty start with Wednesday’s Croftengea. Here now is another peated malt from a distillery elsewhere in the highlands: Ardmore.
I’ve previously reviewed a number of these Ardmore 23, 1997s bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and liked them all. This despite the fact that none of the previous have been from straightforward ex-bourbon casks, my preferred incarnation of Ardmore’s spirit. All spent the first 21 years in ex-bourbon and then the final two in another type of cask. 66.199 came closest to being ex-bourbon, having been matured for 21 years in ex-bourbon before receiving a finish in an engineered HTMC cask (high-toast, medium-char, I think). 66.198 spent its last two years in a French oak barrique. 66.195 and 66.197 were both finished in sherry casks, the former in a first-fill oloroso barrique and the latter in a refill Spanish oak hogshead. This is another of those oloroso barrique finishes, a first-fill STR oloroso barrique to be exact (STR= shaved, toasted, re-charred, I think). The SMWS gave it the name “Smoky Cajun Roux”. As good as the others? Let’s see.
Ardmore 23, 1997 (49.2%; SMWS; STR oloroso barrique finish; from a bottle split)
Nose: A little closed at first but then there’s cola concentrate stirred with some pencil lead. Some char on the second sniff, both oaky and savoury; some fruit too (orange peel, cherries). As it sits there’s more oak (mostly polished with the occasional raw note). With more time still, it softens with a bit of toffee and butterscotch emerging. Water pushes the oak back further and pulls out more of the orange peel and cherries (brandied now) along with some raisins.
Palate: Comes in with the oak in the front but with everything else from the nose present as well. Not much smoke here either. Good drinking strength; decent texture. A little more tannic grip on subsequent sips but nothing offensive; more char as well (and it’s more charred oak than anything savoury here). Sweeter with time but there’s not much depth to the flavours here under the oak. Okay, let’s see what water does for it. It tames the oak here as well but doesn’t make it very much more interesting.
Finish: Medium-long. Nothing new here. The oak and char ease out. Some fruit begins to linger into the finish later but the oak dominates it. As on the palate with water.
Comments: The finish in the rejuvenated cask hasn’t resulted in the sherry notes tasting bolted on, or floating on top, but it has resulted in the oak feeling a bit bolted on. And the oak—presumably—has masked the smoke almost completely. Water gets the oak under control, for the most part, but it still ends up a somewhat generic ex-oloroso malt, with not much evident Ardmore character.
Rating: 82 points. (Pulled up by water.)
By the way, I noticed that renowned Ardmore enthusiast, Michael K. of Diving for Pearls coincidentally reviewed this cask this week as well (we got samples from the same split). He was not impressed either.