The final Distillery on our Islay adventure after Lagavulin and Laphroaig, was Ardbeg. It was well worth the wait. We took the Ardbig Tour and Ardbig Tasting at Two. I highly recommend this tour. Ardbeg is one of the distilleries that produces with production details. Then the tasting offers great, from the cask samples with food pairings.
The Old Kiln Café at Ardbeg
The Ardbeg grounds are festive. There is a pot kettle outside in a branded courtyard. They have a branded party bus, Harley Davidson and tractor onsite. The gift shop is large and with items that are more usable than some of the other items from other gift shops. Along with the large gift shop is a wonderful café. I had smoked haddock Chowder – on a cold day, you can’t beat it. What makes the café and gift shop seem so big is that they are inside the old malting building. Remolded, the dual pagoda ceiling is three stories above the floor.
The ARDBIG Tour and ARDBIG Tasting at Two
On the tour we walked through several buildings seeing the production process from grist mill to cask filling. Photos are allowed in most buildings but there are limitations.
The Ardbeg secret is a special tweek of their pot still. Most pot stills have an upward angle for their condensing arms. This allows some of the condensed distillate to fall back into the pot still for additional distillation and a smoother finished product. Ardbeg’s pot still condensation arm has a downward angle which allows more distillate to flow toward the finished product except for a unique filter. In the middle of the downward pointing arm is a hole and a recapture tube. This recaptured distillate then returns to the pot still for additional distillation similar to the norm.
In all cases, we are talking about a small portion of distilled spirit being recaptured. That early condensing distillate has taste characteristics which are purposely filtered for additional distillation. In the case of Ardbeg with their downward facing filter technique, one taste characteristic that is recaptured is smoke. This allows Ardbeg to smoke their barley to the highest standard production level of about 55ppm. Obviously, special productions around Scotland are peated to higher levels, but Ardbeg claims the highest level of peat smoke for standard new make spirit production. The result of highly peated barley along with this pot still filter is a deep but subtle smoke flavor.
Then we went inside a warehouse for our samples. The primary cask samples were all 14 year olds from 2005. This allowed us to taste the different cask treatments of a single year’s production run.
Earlier in the tour, we were able to taste the new make spirit as it was being filling into a cask. The Ardbeg new make spirit is something to behold in and of itself. Soft and sweet as you would hope but rarely attributed to new make spirit. I gained a lot of respect for Ardbeg once I discovered what their new make tasted like. Interesting that other distilleries don’t try harder to allow sampling of their new make – or maybe that statement answers my question.
We were given a single baseline of new make spirit and then taken to the warehouse to see how the cask treatments add to the finished product. Starting with a 14 year old in a bourbon barrel, this was pair with smoked mussels. Next we tried a 14 year old that spent 7 years in bourbon and then 7 years in a sherry cask. This was paired with a swiss styled cheese. Finally, we tried a 14 year old that had been aged exclusively in a sherry case. This was paired with a blue cheese.
After a round of questions, we then tried some of the more expensive bottled expressions such as Supernova. The Supernova was poured from a magnum bottle which is a pretty funny sight to see. There were only 5 people on this tour and we were able to ask much more detailed questions.
Back to Port Ellen with Ron
When the tour was over, we went back to the café and picked up our stuff. By this time, it was almost 5pm. The tourists had all left and the front-of-the-house staff had mostly gone home. We went out to the pier for a signature Instagram shot. As we slowly made our way up the distillery drive and for a long, cold and windy walk back to Port Ellen, our tour guide Ron drove up to us on his way home. He offered a ride and seeing as we were about to embark on a 90 minute walk with several purchased items in our bags, we agreed. Ron proceeded to continue our tour all the way past his house and into the town of Port Ellen. He stopped in at the mini-mart and we headed to dinner. A pretty great ending to a great day.