Unpeated, Double Cask, ArdnAmerica & Peated | Various ABV

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Sauternes is a decadent cask in which to stick the salty sandfest of Ardna spirit. It’s magic*

Bockled Burst Baw.

I’m old. Everything hurts.

For the past two months, in evenings and weekends, I’ve been working on finishing our new short-term let and it’s done me in proper. I’m healing slower than ever. My limbs ache. My back is stabbing at my legs and my fingers are cut to shreds. Most of my injuries were, I’m pained to say, sustained from being an idiot.

Mid-rant at Mrs Crystal’s lack of tidiness when clearing the driveway, I slipped on a window frame that I was in the process of dismantling, to take to the recycling centre. She looked on in both amusement and concern, as I suddenly went from sounding off to lying down like a luger; it was a piece of insulation foam that had tripped me up. I’d flung it there earlier. The steam coming out from my ears was enough warning not to prod the bear further.

The fibrous loft insulation, almost a half-metre of the bloody stuff thanks to modern building regulations for U-values and heat retention, flared up my sciatica as I crumpled about the diddy-loft, unable to stand up properly. Breathing in all manner of retro-carcinogens and modern cancers, a snood folded across my face did little to filter out the particles.

My most used finger on my favoured hand (stop it) suffered a brutal slicing on the very first cardboard box of furniture I attempted to open, and promptly bled everywhere. Mrs Crystal was not best pleased, tightening the plaster so that the circulation around my neck ceased. Then she sorted the finger out. It’s surprising how that middle crook on the inside of your index finger is used for so many things - tying shoelaces, holding a spoon for a yogurt, pointing at rainbows etc.

Chasing the Hairy Bullet around the driveway in circles because someone had released her outside unannounced, in Crocs with which I hadn't deployed the Sport Mode, meant I subsequently tripped over the foamy traction, forcing me into a running fall that eventually ended with me scraping my legs to ribbons on the rough tarmac. Again blood everywhere. Again Mrs Crystal was not pleased - not at all.

But the final straw was last night as I sat down on the sofa in a folded mess just as the Hairy Bullet decided it was time for cuddles; Mrs Crystal shouted “the Aurora is here!” and ran outside wrapped in a duvet jacket, looking very much like Lenny Kravitz in his heyday.

I wasn’t interested, knowing how unlikely it would be to see it, but the door thrust open and a shout of “‘MON THEN!” forced me to rise, creakingly and painfully, and make my way out into the darkness, where my brain decided that the picnic bench that has sat in the same place, just outside our door for two years now, suddenly didn’t exist.

Blinded by the transition from light to dark, I bounced my way down onto the stone chips and jogged full-speed, shin first, into the wooden bars of the bench and I tell you what, I saw some bright colours all over the place. It would've been a magical experience had I not been desperately trying not to ugly cry. No aurora to be seen, either, for the record.

Tonight I sit like a knackered mannequin from Jenners; rigid and grubby, raising the Glencairn to my grimacing face with my pinky and thumb because my fingers don’t bend anymore. My shin has an extra shin that the Hairy Bullet finds hilarious to stand on, and the bruise on my arse from the window frame is now purple.

Thank goodness for whisky.

Having travelled to and from the hallowed grounds of Glenbeg once more, I returned triumphant with a bottle of whisky (or two), and decreed that my time of floundering around the bothy is now over. Licensing submitted and a waiting game engaged, we’re in the final stretch. Once this place is running proper, the whisky budget will return and I will be once more thrust into the world of amber exploration.

What a time to be back in the game too, as we see prices tumbling on whisky across the land, and big age statements returning to a place where sweat doesn’t spontaneously bead down the forehead at checkout. There’s some way to go yet, but if this isn’t the time to be casting out the big net of whisky fun, I don’t know when is.

I’ve converged on Ardnamurchan lately because, if budget restrictions prevent buying sight-unseen whisky, I’m sticking to what I know. That doesn’t mean I’ve not explored new things (thank you to the folk who sent me samples that I’ve been going through systematically) but as far as other distilleries, I’ve not been to many places for new whisky.

Glen Scotia’s 12yo is the last bottle I received, for my birthday, that wasn’t Ardnamurchan, and the first one got lost in transit, thus too late to contribute to the big review when the replacement did arrive.

I think it’s very good. Certainly a 7/10, if you’re wondering.

Today I’m doing a comparison, again, between different Ardnamurchan expressions - legacy and new. I have four here, all Sauternes. The first is the Sauternes Cask Release 2024, launched to great success and opening the gates to other uses of Sauternes, like the second bottle: a single cask/double vatting of two Sauternes barriques for the AD/Venturers club. The third is the latest to arrive and the focus of today’s review, and manifested due to feedback gathered in the field by Ardnamurchan’s sales team: a peated edition of the Sauternes Cask Release.

The fourth is the 2025 ArdnAmerica Tour Bottle release, which this year is a peated Sauternes combo of four casks. This is very similar to the Sauternes Cask Release Peated, but is different enough owing to its cask strength presentation.

Sauternes is a cask finish that’s been appearing a lot more these days, not just from Ardnamurchan, and is part of a divergence from the more traditional bourbon or sherry casked whisky. I reviewed a Fib bottled Glenglassaugh last year, finished in Sauternes for the Fife Whisky Festival 2024, which was really lovely - buttery and sweet.

That said, I’ve never tried Sauternes wine - a sweet dessert wine typically served chilled. This year, for the festive period, I’m going to try and get an example of every cask common in whisky, just so I can start to try and identify where the whisky stops and the cask begins: port, sherry, agave, wine (like Sauternes - I already drink enough white and red wine to know what that’s all about).

Reading about it though, I have a fair idea of what Sauternes imparts to whisky - sweetness, honey, peaches, white fruits and a silkiness that carries forward.

We’ll soon see.

Review 1 of 4

Sauternes Cask Release 2024, 50% ABV
£65, available online and in-store

This is my 2nd bottle of this expression and I reviewed it alongside the AD/10 and AD/Venturers Sauternes in late 2024. Back then I found it a wee bit funky, buttery and orangey. This year I’ve found it more of the same.

I’m using this as my base reference point for the rest of the whiskies in the line-up.

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*A sweet, decadent edition of the coastal Ardna spirit. Lovely*

Nose

Fresh petrichor. Thick. Juicy. White fruit - caramelised. Wet. Vanilla Rubber. Hint of swimming pool including the weird changing lockers. Peppery. Metallic whisper.

Palate

Saucy. Earthy. Sweet, floral - grapes, stewed pears. Black pepper. Rich chardonnay. Wee bit of soap. Heather toffee. Bit of sweet veges - gorse? Little bit of salt, rocks, sand.

The Dregs

A solid, buttery sweet Ardnamurchan with the coastal side tempered, but still there in the background. It’s not my go-to reach when I want an Ardnamurchan, but it’s a very enjoyable style.

Score: 7/10

Review 2 of 4

Ardnamurchan AD/Venturers’s Release 2024 - Sauternes Cask 367 & 369, 55% ABV
£67.95 Sold Out

This is the same bottle I reviewed as part of the AD/10 review. It’s about 2/7ths full right now, so there’s been a lot of time and air in the bottle between December and now. This is just over 8yo whisky.

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Double cask fun, in revisiting, not quite as stellar as last year.*

Nose

Smoked honey. Thick. Quite zingy in a rich chardonnay way (rich white wine). Oaky zing. Peppery cedar. Sandy, salty marshmallows. Rich. A bit of milky freshness. Some earthy tones. Pretty powerful stuff, so water tames it, but I feel it loses the impact.

Palate

Spicy juicy. Ripe/over-ripe banana, also grapefruit. Sharpening. Coconut oil. Bit of oak, bit of biscuit, bit of salty sandpaper.

The Dregs

Revisiting this, I still think it’s good. I see why people were asking for a bit of peat fun in this mix - it could bring a lot of grounding to the sweeter spectrum that is here in abundance. Controversially I’m going to reduce my original score from 8/10. The amount of Ardna liquid I’ve poured into my face since December has given me a bit more perspective, and whilst this is still really good whisky, when sat alongside other things it seems to hit full throttle at a high 7.

Score: 7/10

Review 3 of 4

ArdnAmerica 2025 - Peated Sauternes Cask 55.7% ABV
$90 available in USA

I’m lucky to have caught this bottle without the need for it to go all the way over to America and all the way back again. This is a different direction for the American specific releases, which are usually sherry-based exciters. This year it’s a blending of peated Sauternes barriques and a foundation bourbon ASB, 900 bottle’s worth and presented with a bright red label for 2025. White in 2023, blue in 2024 and red this year. What’ll next year’s be, I wonder?

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*Heavy hitting but retaining balance, this is sugary sweet peat at full volume*

Nose

Dusty petrichor. Smoke, earth, fire. Ointment. Sudocreme? Pencil shavings, medicinal. Coastal comes through: salty spray. Beeswax polish. Wet sand. Bonfire. Buttered crackers. Fleeting ash - cigarettes!

Palate

Rich earthy peat smoke. Rough red light - frayed around the edges. Long heat, sweet smoke. Sriracha. Vinyl record. Golden syrup. Bit of Glenbeg warehouse too - dunnage, dusty, farmy, malty. Feels a bit funky too, dirty. Casky - charred oak. Bright red and black colours spring to mind.

The Dregs

I think this is really interesting. The peat has brought a lot of earth and smoke, obviously, but it feels balanced with the amped sweetness of the Sauternes. It’s bold, almost bordering on a Campbeltown weirdness, but the salty Ardna character stops it short.

Score: 7/10

Review 4 of 4

Sauternes Cask Release Peated 50.0% ABV
£65 available online and in-store

Here we go then to the main bottle under review. I’m expecting a robust, rich, decadent, fruity, buttery, silky whisky, wrapped in a big smokey blanket. 50% ABV here, unlike the cask strength ArdnAmerica release, which might temper it down slightly. I love the addition of a darker mustard chevron on the golden yellow label, to differentiate it from the unpeated Sauternes Cask Release. Continuity, yet identifiably different.

Score: 7/10

**Very Good Indeed.**
***TL;DR***
*A toned back version of the ArdnAmerica, but stands on its own too. Rich, decadent, coastal smokey whisky.*

Nose

Fresh salty breeze. Distant coal scuttle. Vegetal things happening - wild gorse and heather maybe. Earthy. Parma violets. Sand. Wet clay. Boiled sweets. Paper.

Palate

Chewing oaky pencils. Sweet winey - thick grapey. Cracked black pepper. Green bell peppers. Green juicy. Salty concrete dust. Bonfires on shores. Dunnage, almost silage. Dirty. Funky. Not quite as peated as the ArdnAmerica. Might be ABV. Might be casks.

The Dregs

So this is where I think the peated cask release sits in the spectrum of Sauternes cask releases. I prefer the peated version over the unpeated version, purely because of the widening of the flavour stage giving me more to look for and appreciate.

It’s not as powerfully smokey as the ArdnAmerica release, and that could be purely an ABV reduction taking all that smokey edge off, but it could also be that the peated release is using a fair amount more casks than the ArdnAmerica release, by quite a margin. That inclusion of so many casks makes this possibly a more unified, or uniformed blend against the four cask makeup of the ArdnAmerica.

Whatever way I look at it, this is a very good whisky and I have enjoyed exploring it. Whilst it continues to not be my gravitational pull of Ardnamurchan cask styles, it’s another example of how dextrous the Glenbeg spirit is.

I wonder when we’ll see the tequila casks and did wonder when we’d see the Ruby Port style that was offered up to AD/Venturers in May. Still no news on the former, but a Ruby Port single cask has been released, as a Distillery Visitor Centre Exclusive, and I’m currently exploring that bright red world now.

Will update you soon on how it compares to other blue bottled magic from them bods at Glenbeg. Maybe after the injuries have healed a bit.

Score: 7/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC

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