Ardbeg Distillery

Ard­beg Dis­tillery is a Scotch whisky dis­tillery on the south coast of the isle of Islay.

Other dis­til­leries on the south coast include Laphroaig and Lagavulin. Ard­beg claims to be the peati­est Islay whisky, and uses malted bar­ley sourced from the (Dia­geo owned) malt­ings in Port Ellen. Dis­tillery man­ager was Mr. Stu­art Thom­son from 1997 to 2006. On March 12^th 2007, Michael “Mickey” Heads, the for­mer man­ager at Jura took over the reins from Stu­art Thom­son. Ard­beg is renowned for its overtly peaty, smokey house style. Despite a pun­gent nose, for­mi­da­ble fla­vors, and high alco­hol con­tent, Ard­beg is sur­pris­ingly smooth on the palate, with a warm lin­ger­ing finish.

His­tory

The Ard­beg dis­tillery was estab­lished in 1815, but was moth­balled in 1981 when pro­duc­tion stopped. Pro­duc­tion resumed on a lim­ited basis in 1989, and con­tin­ued at a low level through late 1996. It was bought and reopened in 1997 by Glen­morangie Plc, with pro­duc­tion resum­ing on June 25, 1997, with full pro­duc­tion resum­ing in 1998. It is now one of the fastest grow­ing Islay single-malts. Glen­morangie Plc. is jointly owned by the French com­pany LVMH and the British com­pany Diageo.

The Ard­beg Com­mit­tee was estab­lished in 1945 to “pro­mote the advance­ment of gen­eral knowl­edge and enjoy­ment of Ard­beg”. All Ardbeg-aficionados can join this Com­mit­tee on Ardbeg’s web­site (see below). Spe­cial bot­tlings can some­times be obtained by mem­bers of this com­mit­tee. It is not pos­si­ble to have these spe­cial bot­tlings shipped to the US or Canada.

Ard­beg often bot­tles its whiskies at a higher alco­hol level than the min­i­mum 40% ABV. Many bot­tlings are also non-chillfiltered. Both mea­sures con­tribute to pro­duce a full-flavoured whisky.