Ardbeg 9 Year Old 1996 Spirit of Scotland

Spirit of Scotland is also a label used by Gorden & Macphail, the famous bottler from Elgin (and owners of the beautiful whisky shop in that town). In this case, it is a single cask at cask strength, distilled in 1996 and bottled after 9 years in 2005. I had it before, but did not make notes then. Time to set the record straight.

Hmmm, typical Ardbeg at first. You can smell it is young. Smoke, peat and green apples. Feisty and fruity. Okay, this is not very complex, but who cares? It is good. Hang on… give him a few more minutes and you will get some banana and marzipan, I kid you not!

The attack is very sweet. Fruity with some liquorice. Midpalate, the salt and peat march onto the tongue, flanked by white pepper. Again very young and straightforward, but very pleasant. And eminently quaffable undiluted.

The finish is short, briny and smoky.

A wonderful, young Ardbeg. The finish could have been longer, though.

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