Official Distillery bottling | 46.8% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
A fine example of a microcosm of everything this distillery does so well
A Lifetime in a Decade
Last weekend, the Dunlop clan (my partner and our doodle) packed the SUV and embarked on a “Great American Road Trip” up the vast stretch of California to the Northern enclave of Humboldt County for our annual family retreat.
I’ve written about this magnificent place before and will continue to. We’re drawn to its breathtaking landscapes and the simple charm and relaxing pace of downsized, small-town living. It’s slower here. Peaceful. Quiet. And the semi-rural location of where we stay allows for bright night-time stars on clear nights and the sounds of croaking frogs, the occasional owl, and ocean waves. A 180-degree shift from the noise and bustle of our big city life in Long Beach.
Although the weather is a dice throw in February compared to the blue skies and balmy temperatures of a Southern California Winter, the current view from my writing desk/workstation can best be described as dreary. We enjoy the stillness, relaxing setting, regrouping and recharging after a hectic holiday season and start of the year. I’m fortunate to have flexibility to work from anywhere and my partner has ample vacation time and holidays to make our little retreat feasible to the realities of the world.
This year we decided to do the full 13-hour drive in one shot. For scale to my UK friends (according to Google) that’s roughly the distance from Portsmouth, on the Southern tip of England, to Thurso, in the Extreme North of Scotland – and that’s not even the full stretch of California, we’re still approximately 2 1/2 hours from the Oregon border.
A full-day drive along the length of California offers a panorama of scenery and changing landscapes. There’s a seemingly endless urban and suburban sprawl in Southern California, a monotonous rolling tableau of hills, farmland, and livestock through the Central Valley, an alphabet soup of tech companies and apartment buildings in the Bay Area, the boundless greenery and vineyards of Sonoma wine country, and finally, through spacious forestland and over the rocky creeks and rivers of Northern California. The first awe-inspiring redwood titan that looms over the narrow and winding two-lane road tells us we’re in the home stretch.
The dood’ did fine after veterinarian-prescribed medication helped her sleep most of the journey and we stopped along the way for bathroom breaks and a nice run at a baseball field for her to release pent-up puppy energy. It’s exhausting in the moment, and an exceptionally long drive, but we’re happy to have made it in one go and would do it again.
The last time I did the whole drive in one stretch without an overnight respite was ten years ago. A buddy and I decided to surprise a mutual friend at Thanksgiving. He attended the local university in Humboldt and was struggling with the isolation of being cut-off from family and loved ones. Little did I know our decision to make that long drive to deliver fellowship for a friend-in-need would change my life.
A forestry major in college, he took us on our first hike in the redwoods, talked at length about the unique ecosystem and showed us the local scenery. It’s been an obsession ever since. I’ve lived an entire life in the ten years since that trip.
The previous year I’d gotten married and had a nice, comfortable, suburban existence. It was a happy and fulfilling marriage – until it wasn’t. There were darkness and demons leading up to and after the divorce. A global pandemic exacerbated bad behaviors and simultaneously somehow compressed time while making long days seem eternal.
But moving to the city and slowly forging the pieces of a new life, while working through the arduous healing process, finally allowed happiness once again. Acquiring a fresh start, second wind, and newfound lust-for-life in one’s forties is rare and I’m grateful for the help and deliverance found along the way both from within and without.
A whole life lived in one decade. Just under a quarter of my entire presence on this bright, blue orb.
A “decade” as a time-description is odd in-itself. When compared to the expanse of history, it’s a small number. Lucky at best, we humans only have eight or nine total decades on Earth. Yet for most whisky age statements one decade is just the beginning.
Dramface regularly discusses expressions that have matured for 10,12,15 and 18 years. For many established whisky producers the “10” is their minimum core range release. A decade appears a lifetime to a person when filled with transformative events, but for a “new” distillery it’s simply their first major benchmark. The fact we can still call them “new” a decade on is testament to the interpretations of language.
The bottle under discussion today is ten years old. The fact this whisky was distilled the year I was married and opened at the tail-end of my decade-of-enormous-change means this liquid was quietly maturing while I endured all combinations of personal trauma, loss, resilience, and healing. Like me, this whisky also went through a tremendous alteration, albeit a chemical reaction between wood and spirit while mine was a metamorphosis of the soul.
Review
Ardnamurchan 10yo, AD/10 2025 release, 98% ex-bourbon, 2% ex-sherry, 46.8% ABV
USD$70 paid (£55) still some availability
Far more than a philosophical discussion about the meaning of time and the language we puny humans use to describe it, I’m “super chuffed”, as my UK friends might say, for the opportunity to discuss a brand-new offering from Ardnamurchan.
I mentioned a little in my debut piece that while in Scotland, Ardnamurchan was highly regarded by the whisky folk, bartenders, and shop owners I met along the way, and it was through this passion I was introduced to the distillery. Their palpable enthusiasm for this spirit was contagious, and the liquid backed it up.
After discovering Dramface, I felt kindred to Dougie and looked forward to his positive ravings and meticulous coverage of each new release more than any other. I was pleased upon joining the team that this bottle wasn’t yet under consideration and I’m excited to dive in with my own thoughts.
According to the distillery, unlike 2024’s AD/10 Special Release (which I thought was a belter), this AD/10 is meant to be a regular release and is similar to their flagship AD/ Core Release in terms of the cask profile and ABV. It was a smaller outturn in 2025 due to the distillery’s capacity ten years ago, but the distillery claims as more stock becomes available it will eventually become an annual core expression. Videos they’ve released hint that it may be around 2028, since they nearly doubled capacity in 2018. Whether it will eventually replace the NAS flagship they don’t say.
This AD/10 is a blend of 48% peated and 52% unpeated spirit and like every bottle of Ardnamurchan there’s a nifty QR code with valuable information about each bottle. Mine was bottle 374/16,380.
The barley variety is Concerto barley grown on the Broomhall farm in Fife; had an average fermentation time of 76 hours, was filled into the cask at 63.5% ABV, and the final blend was 98% bourbon casks and 2% oloroso sherry casks - all matured right on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
A fine example of a microcosm of everything this distillery does so well
Nose
Opens with honey cereal, a faint earthy tinder smoke, vanilla cream, and orange citrus. There’s also that flinty mineral Ardna’ character along with its unmistakable sea-salty coastal signature. Coming back, there’s depth here and more richness than I remember from the AD/ Flagship. Plain oatmeal. Fresh pears. Pineapple. Glazed donuts. Rock salt. Banana bread. Light ashiness. Caramel drizzle. Coconut. Hints of doughy baking spices. Water brings more fruits and some juiciness like fresh apples and tangerines. A light waxiness. Salted nuts. The faint smokiness is still there in the background, but it’s more like singed paper. Oatmeal cookies. Barley chaff. Warm, inviting, and very enjoyable.
Palate
Smokier than the nose, but barely. Malty sweetness. Dry wood smoke. Oatmeal with brown sugar and maple syrup. Cookie dough. Burnt sugar cookies. Creamy cakiness almost like a Twinkie. Melon fruits. Water brings honey granola and dessert notes like tiramisu, caramel flan, crème brûlée, and oatmeal maple syrup. The finish is dry and sooty, but also offers a pleasant honey sweetness, granola again, and more sugar cookies. I just wish it lingered a skosh longer. The ABV is perfect for what is really a lovely expression, well on its way to Highland core range royalty.
The Dregs
This met all my expectations and more. Having never come across a poor expression yet from these West Highland pre-teens, those expectations were already high. At the first nose and sip this was everything I wanted from a dram of Ardnamurchan: coastal, malty, earthy sweetness wrapped in gentle peat smoke. It has character in spades and is extremely drinkable.
The liquid levels dropped more than usual on this one as it became the go-to dram while I watched my beloved Seattle Seahawks absolutely dominate the New England Patriots in last week’s Super Bowl. A super dram to go along with a super experience ending a super season. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I didn’t bring a huge collection on our trip, especially because I did give my partner a bit of a preamble as I lugged a box filled with bottles into our SUV.
“Don’t worry I’m not drinking them; I’m writing about them.”
Well, our champion Seattle Seahawks may have caused a little bit of both on this one.
My only critique would be that $70 is a little steep for a 10-year release, I’m hoping as stock increases and transitions into becoming a regular core expression, the price comes down a bit. I’ll gladly pay $70 for a particularly good bottle of Ardnamurchan, but since I tend to have 3-4 bottles from this distillery open at a time, a little relief would be welcome - even for a few bucks less. And since the nose and palate have so much depth and character, I’d love for the finish to linger a little longer, but honestly, it’s nitpicking. I’m clearly enjoying this bottle and can think of fellow “Ardnamur-fans” I’d love to share it with.
I’ll declare this whisky a triumph at one decade.
Me? Like all people, a continual work-in-progress. Whisky stops maturing once it’s taken out of the barrel, but I’m happy the forces of the world are repeatedly working to shape who I am and excited for what’s next in our decades to come.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. AD
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