Ardbeg is a distillery that loves its marketing. This is not a slight against the distillery, just a fact of the marketplace. But Ardbeg likes to have fun with their one-off yearly committee releases. No two are alike and they are not afraid to embrace a story. Even if it involves flavor dragons and terrible puns. The Ardbeg Scorch is their 2021 committee release and the box is bedecked with artful flavor dragons breathing, presumably, flavor fire. The Scorch in the name derives from the heavy char Ardbeg gave to the barrels this scotch matured in for an undisclosed period of time. Whether you embrace the fanciful story or not, however, the flavor abides.
Tamdhu 15 Year
Tamdhu distillery was founded in 1896 in the Speyside village of Knockando, Scotland. Much of the next century passed without note, including some periods of dormancy related to war and supply shut off, and it wasn’t until the 1970s that more investments were made to increase production output. It is the last distillery in Scotland to use a Saladin box in production. Currently able to produce 4.5 million liters a year, most of the Tamdhu spirit is used in blended scotches like The Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark. However, some single malts do escape. This Tamdhu 15 is, like all their single malts, completely matured in ex-sherry casks.
Boulder Spirits Peated Malt
Boasting “…big dreams, bigger goals, and the biggest pot still in the state” Boulder Spirits Distillery brings us their Peated American Single Malt. The recipe is simple: distillers malted barley, a Scottish pot still, #3 char American white oak barrels, aged in an arid high elevation climate, and cut with the celebrated Eldorado Springs water. Their outlook is that peat can be a piece of the whiskey, and not the defining attribute. Aged for a minimum of three years, the Boulder Spirits Peated Malt uses is a lightly peated single malt made in the tradition of Scotland, with American ingenuity.