Ardbeg: The peat and the earth

By Miguel at 2011 Jan,31 in Featured , Ardbeg

Its name rise passions between whisky aficionados. One of the peatiest islay whiskies.
Founded in 1815 by the MacDougall family, the distillery located at the south of Islay, Scotland, between another two monster like Lagavulin and Laphroaig, has recently rise from its ashes.

Perhaps production of whisky on the site was there a few decades before 1815, but on 1886 more than a third of the townfolk were working on the distillery. Only a century later the distillery was closed. Most of Ardbeg production were used in blended whiskies whose creators realized that they didn’t want strong peat whiskies.

Fortunatelly, Ardbeg distillery was reopened in 1989 under a limited basis and continue on a really low level until 1996 under the ownership of Hiram Walker. In 1997 the distillery was adquired by Glenmorangie plc ( owned by LVMH ) that resumed the production on June 25, 1997. One of the things that placed Ardbeg in the cult status that is now are the great independent bottlings of Douglas Laing from early 1970 which were great. Unfortunately, the malting on Ardbeg was not reopened and they sourced their malt now from Port Ellen maltings.

Water is sourced from Loch Uigeadail. Whisky is matured on the warehouse of the distillery in Islay using several types of casks, mainly bourbon and sherry casks.

The Ardbeg Committee was established in 1999, and it was a great way to pass the word about Ardbeg around the world. Members of the committee usually has access to special bottlings.

Ardbeg have garnered a good array of awards on Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible