Ardbeg 1996 GM Spirit of Scotland
| Category | SINGLE MALT |
| Distillery | Ardbeg |
| Bottler | Gordon & MacPhail (GM) |
| Bottling Series | - |
| Vintage | 1996 |
| Bottled Year | 2005 |
| Age | 8년 |
| Cask Type | - |
| Cask Number | - |
| Bottles Released | - |
| ABV | 51.7% |
| Volume | 700 ml |
| Label | - |
| Country | Scotland |
| Region | Islay |
Flavor Profile
Tasting Notes
Colour
white wine
air Nose
powerful, on full apple juice and white pepper mode. Very smoky and somewhat briny. Lots of grapefruit too. Quite simple in fact, but rather enjoyable very young of course but smoother than the Very Young OB. Lots of apple juice, smoke, peat… But again, not much else. Yet, it's clean and rather fresh, which make it quite enjoybale you aren't seeking complexity rather fresh attack, fruity and floral (the lomond stills?) Develops mainly on orange juice, marmalade… Not complex at all but rather enjoyable
restaurant Palate
full bodied but extremely sweet and spirity, with some apple juice and some smoke but not much else. Again, a simple one, quite good but I'm sorry, it's too sweetish for my tastes. Ardbeg 1996/2004 (51.7%, Spirit of Scotland, cask #898) very sweet again but nicely balanced this time. Quite some liquorice and lots of peat… Gets a bit sour and quite peppery after a moment - but it's a nice sourness. Rather maritime this one (seaweed), with also some paraffin notes. In short, a nice youngster that aged quite quickly. It's more mature than the SMWS. Good. Look, Soup, I'm sorry but I'm not sure it's been an improvement ;-). Okay, that was and 78 points for the SMWS, and and 85 points for the Spirit of Scotland. MUSIC – Jazz - Recommended listening: adventurous French sax and clarinet player Michel Portal does Histoires de vent.mp3 ('Wind stories') from 'Musiques de CinemaS'. Wow, what a sound! Please buy Michel Portal's music! (photo Cees van de Ven) NEWS - We just got this press release. It's no crazy rumour and no hoax, honest! (only picture by ourselves) "For Immediate Release Islamic Whisky Islam's greatest legacy, in addition to The Koran and the Arabic language, is the unholy art of distilling alcohol as implied directly by “ Trestarig ” - a long forgotten Hebridean whisky - re-created by a small, independent whisky distiller. Trestarig , pronounced “trace-arak”, according to a 300 year old manuscript refers to a triple distilled spirit that may have it’s origins in ‘Arak’, the original Middle Eastern spirit distilled from wine. Distilling was discovered in 9th Century Syria for making ladies’ eye shadow called ‘al-kohl’. The art of making “burnt wine” and it’s aniseed-flavoured descendants (Raki, Pastis etc.) spread with Islam around the Mediterranean. Christianity took it on to Ireland and the pagan Gaels of the Scottish Hebrides where barely replaced the vine. In 1703 ‘A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland’ by Martin Martin observes: “the air is tempe