Ardbeg 10 Year Old

This succinct review, like this specific whisky, is pregnant with promise because of what it doesn't say!

The review description of "softness" is definitely apposite. This is a whisky to flaunt its multi-faceted favours (that is not a mis-spelling) before you even taste it! I poured a measure in my Glencairn glass and couldn't stop passing it, wafting it, beneath my nose - every time I did so, this precocious whisky flaunted its various favours before me! Per the review, smokiness, yes. Not absent, but not 'in your face' either. Not so much subtle, as 'present'. The sea-spray infiltrating that smokiness too. I was on the beach before a wood fire.

The citrus smells - lemon and lime? I go along with that. Lifting, refreshing. But part of the whole: the whole not being subsumed to the citrus or the smoke or the sea-spray saltiness.

A third waft below the nose - now a refined smokiness. No longer just a wood smokiness, but What type of wood?, What state of dryness of the wood? No answers, I'm afraid, but, as said, pregnant with promise.

I am not sufficiently familiar with tasting quality whisky, but, Oh my Goodness!, how the flavour lingers long after the mouthful is swallowed. Savour the flavour! Even trying to neutralize the palate with a good mouthful of beer does not rid the after-taste. There are some after-tastes I like (such as this one) - and some which I find distinctly off-putting (like apple juice).

I have much to learn (and, unfortunately for me, I am such a s-l-o-w learner - you need to instruct me three, four, five or even more times before it sinks in!), but this whisky is definitely one which I will use a 'standard' against which to measure others of the ilk.

Thanks for your review - it helped me better appreciate this delightful escapade with this wanton siren flaunting (but not with abandonment) her hidden depths.

What else do you like?