Ardnamurchan Sherry Cask Release
Limited Release 2023 | 50% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something Special.
TL;DR
More mature than it has any right to be.
A partner through one of life’s most challenging episodes.
I worry my life will be wasted on speculation. When I really boil it down to its thick, viscous truth, it’s a fear of spending all my life coins in the pursuit of creating a lasting legacy, of leaving something of me behind when I retire to the big oloroso cask in the sky.
But the inexorable yomp of time takes no prisoners; we will all, in a matter of centuries, see any laid legacy be reduced to nothing but words on a page. A distant, fleeting mention in the annals of time that we, flesh and bone, once walked this earth. That fact alone is quite hard to reconcile along with the energy and dedication required to “make something of yourself”.
For some, to exist with any semblance of happiness is to live knowing it’s all going to end in darkness but do it anyway, and with aplomb. With grit and determination just to… exist. To be. To enjoy the experience of life as it arrives at their sensory systems and appreciate how beautiful it all is. To try and fail and do it all again. To take risks. To see what comes of a measured decision and accept the results with gratitude no matter where it falls on the spectrum of good or bad. To suffer the embarrassment of being wrong; but surely to be wrong is only evidence that you cared enough to try. That you waded into the turbulent waters of life and survived to tell the tale.
I’ve sat and thought about this singular notion - what is it all for - and many other things on what is officially my 39th year on this planet. It is 22:06 on a Thursday evening, the vPub has returned, broadcasting live through laptop speakers as my wife sits across from me posting little plastic beads on to transparent thread; she’s promised my eight year old daughter that she’d make her a friendship bracelet and won’t let her down. To my left stands a tall stemmed glass with a glowing group of refractions the colour of sodium street lights that illuminated my divergent youth. At this moment, I am content.
I’ve spent the past five weeks thinking about how best to frame this whisky and have struggled to do it, not just because of the whisky but also because of the blistering life noise that has accompanied it. Five weeks is a long time through the prism of the working day, but in the scope of a lifetime it is but a heartbeat. Right now, as I think about what has transpired in that time, a smouldering swell of anxiety and excitement washes me overboard and all at once I’m at sea, fighting to form any rational thought. A lot has happened.
Commonplace though this feeling has become of late - of floating loosely, desperately in the ether - I still can’t quite gather in the gravity of the situation nor the relative speed at which it has all happened. We, as a family, have decided that the perpetual clarion call of a place we know we belong must now be answered. The band-aid, the temporary fix we valiantly attempted of journeying to and fro the place where, in our heart of hearts, we slot into like a square peg in a square hole, was always going to fail.
And so it was to be, upon arriving back after the camper van trip that was supposed to suppress our longing, at our fixed abode in rural Perthshire where dogs bark like the wind blows, and mischievous kids gather like the murmurations of starlings in the twilight sky, that we’d make the not inconsequential decision to move the Crystal Operation to the west coast of Scotland. Not just the coast though, but to an island known for its utterly arresting landscape, influx of rapid tourism and home to two distilleries: the Isle of Skye.
During the five weeks that have passed since we set course for Fort Augustus in a big bouncy motorhome, we’ve gone through the gamut of human emotion from abject elation to utter desolation and each moment has been marked with a dram of this whisky. To celebrate. To commiserate. To vent. To stem off the tears. Toasting to hope, to a new life or bust. Each moment has been accompanied with this whisky because I know it fits like a square peg in Dougie’s hole… not like that. This is no ordinary whisky, when placed in the complex oil painting landscape of whisky en masse, and so it’s a suitable accompaniment for a time in my life when nothing makes sense. This whisky is something confounding, surprising, miraculous, confusing, unsettling.
Right now I look at an empty bottle of Ardnamurchan Sherry Cask Release beside my glass. I’ve not sampled it out or shared it with anyone. I’ve done this myself. I’ve worked diligently through an entire bottle of whisky, alone (lies - Mrs Crystal has joined me a few times in moments of exceptionally high stress) and yet after all of those centilitres I still feel as if I’ve not managed to pin this whisky down fully. It’s the first whisky in a long time where I’ve struggled to place it because this whisky defies logic.
Review
Release of 13,998 bottles worldwide, 50% ABV
£65 and still widely available
I’ve seen a number of people in high places consider this whisky and call it mediocre. That’s fair, because their data includes whisky that most new whisky exciters, like yours truly, will never possess. I am, like many of you out there, approaching whisky from what I can reasonably purchase in 2023 - and we all know how expensive this pursuit is becoming: £150 for 18 year old whisky is now the norm; £90 for four year old whisky is the norm. Yet here we have a whisky of five year old stock that demands £65 yet smells and tastes like something in double digits. It’s astounding. It’s causing a natural negativity to appear, not because this whisky is disappointing or worth the price, but because Ardnamurchan distillery are able to put something like this out for £65 while other places are claiming their whisky is worth £30-40 more yet pales in comparison.
Loss leader. Is that what this is? Put out a whisky that defies the industry standard of what things should cost, in order to draw people into the Ardnamurchan ecosystem and thus subsequently point people towards the more premium halo products that cost more and overall make more money? It’s a classic marketing strategy. Well, if that is Ardnamurchan’s approach, the halo product would be their blue-bottle single casks. But those cost £85-90, the same price as some core range products from distilleries of similar ilk. So is it a way to get the punters to do a reverse loss leader then, where this Sherry Cask Release gets folk to buy into their cheaper whisky, and buy more of it?
If this is properly, legitimately fairly priced in the landscape of 2023 whisky and is of lasting availability - 5 weeks in and there’s still oodles of it available online - and smells and tastes far more mature than it has any right to…if it’s not to draw people in, not to capitalise on Ardnamurchan’s Saturn V rocket launch into the limelight, not to snatch a slice of the new distillery pie from other places, then what is this Sherry Cask Release for? Well, if a spade is a spade, then this whisky is exactly what it appears to be: surprisingly mature whisky that knocks socks off, is interesting, complex, exciting, enduring, endearing and put out for the sole reason that this is just what Ardnamurchan whisky is - we can, therefore we do. It makes me question all other distilleries, not just the ones approaching 10 years old: if Ardnamurchan Distillery is able to put out whisky of this calibre at this price, with this availability, without fanfare or marketing guff, without pretense or arrogance, influencer pushes or product placement…then why can’t others? It colours everything. This is quality beyond what it has any right to be.
Score: 8/10
Something Special.
TL;DR
More mature than it has any right to be.
Nose
Big raisin, dry fruit whack. Really not like any sherry Ardna I’ve tried. Deep and dark red fruity colour. Petrichor. Earth. Bit of time the coastal starts coming through. Fresh cracked black pepper. Gym hall with a very distant deep heat vapour lick. Savoury appearing - sandbox. Sweaty sandbox. Salty duck. Sharp stick of balsamic. A really earthy, coal-like yet subtle smoke.
More pours mean more prominence of smoke - so beautifully integrated though,
Palate
Big and complex, yet not at all burny. Bold red lick but very quickly the coastal rocky Ardna I love bursts into view. Wrapped in a red blanket. Raisins. Dry fruits. Hint of mint. No firework. No matchbox. Oh…wait! Here comes the salty ocean spray. Now the peaty earthiness. Wow, what balance. How can 5yo whisky taste this…old?
The Dregs
Douglas! Do you see what is happening here? You are too close to Ardnamurchan Distillery and you can’t see past it. You are too chummy with the bods inside Adelphi. You can’t say anything but good things about them, because if you step out of line, then you’ll fall out of favour. This is one of the reasons why this review has taken so long to appear - I am conflicted by what this looks like and I can’t see any way to reconcile what it looks like, with what it is.
Despite what you might think I’m not on speed dial with anyone at Ardnamurchan Distillery. I’m a regular Joe, like you. I pay for all my whisky, Ardnamurchan or no. I choose to purchase whisky based upon what resonates with me and, like it or not, Ardnamurchan whisky resonates with me - the approach, the people, the product, the projection. Some can’t see past Clynelish or Brora. Some think GlenAllachie is the pinnacle of whisky. Some think Glencadam is the most exciting distillery right now. Most think Macallan is a hard pass. Many see Ardnamurchan as the front runners in the “new” distillery swell, and honestly, I’m proud to be one of the most vocal about what Ardnamurchan are doing. Because what they are doing needs to be celebrated, coveted, promoted and admired.
Blimey. I’m quite emotional today because for the past five weeks the Crystals have been dragged like a malfunctioning exocet missile through life’s emotional washing machine and right now on my birthday we’re facing an upwards lob towards the peak in the sine wave. Through abject misery at the behest of banks and their immovable barriers, we have found a way. We have found a route to where we need to be and as a result the blood, sweat and tears that we’ve spent has been for something, rather than nothing. Ardnamurchan Distillery have found a route to where they need to be through sweat, tears and actual blood (I wonder if the injury Connal suffered at Arisaig has healed yet?). They’re on the forefront of the new wave of young, passionate, integrity-led distilleries who put quality above all else, and who know that they have the whisky to back up their very humble approach. Actions speak louder than words. They don’t need adverts and swag, press trips and influencers to punt their wares. They just put out whisky that is fantastic and we, as whisky exciters, see it and understand it. It’s as difficult and as simple as that.
Legacy. It’s charted on the tables of people who place maximum importance on human endeavour, of doing something for the sake of doing it knowing it’ll fade away in the sands of time, but do it for the thrill. Because it feels right. Feels needed. Ardnamurchan might not play the fickle marketing game of others, but through the groundswell of people finding their whisky and realising how utterly spectacular it is, they don’t need to. Those who find Ardnamurchan whisky shout about it from the rooftops willingly because people doing great things without cynicism and arrogance deserves to be shouted about. And, as you all know, I’m more than willing to hold that megaphone up to my facehole and shout the loudest, even if it might mean speculators pounce or more…veteran whisky exciters see it as blinkered or biased. Ardnamurchan are creating a legacy of integrity that very few others can hold a candle to.
Can they sustain it? That’s the question that is rearing its ugly head. When we look at a graph of quality versus age, the line usually starts at 0 on both axis and increases towards 100, but it might be the case that Ardnamurchan whisky, on the quality arm of the graph, starts at 10 or 20. We might have to recalibrate our graphs as the whisky ages. Or we might find that this level of quality is where it peaks for Ardnamurchan whisky - the graph doesn’t go to 100, it goes to 60. All we can do is wait and see, but if the Sherry Cask Release is another useful indicator, then the future looks quite spectacularly bright.
Viva la Vida. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Buy a backup defibrillator because we’re going to need it. Caution has been thrown into the wind and we stand facing the prospect of oblivion with arms raised to the sky and a battle cry of guttural magnificence. We charge at dawn. I’m here for it. Buy this whisky.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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