Ardbeg: Hypernova (Scotland Islay Single Malt Whisky: 51% ABV)
Visual: Pale grain to gold. Fast thick streaks come from the spirit.
Nose: Soot. Dry. Medicinal. Smoke. Medical bandages to medical spirit. Oak. Water adds sulfur. Fresh sour dough. Moss.
Body: Watered down golden syrup. Oak. Very clean medicinal character. Dry. Vanilla toffee. Soft peat. Water makes sweeter. Jelly babies and golden syrup. Toffee syrup. Grapes.
Finish: Dry smoke. Clean. Harsh medicinal back. Mildly acrid after a while. Water adds toffee syrup and vanilla custard.
Conclusion: This is perfectly fine, yet by just being that is actually disappointing.
Considering that the hype is about how peaty it is, this actually comes across very clean, with a clean medicinal character as the most evident style. The smoke is there but again delivered very cleanly, with soot around it. Far less peaty that you would expect based on its reputation.
Water makes it sweeter with a range of sweeter and occasionally fruitier notes than you would normally see in an Ardbeg. Oddly it seems more open to show those notes that the less peaty Ardbeg drams that came before it. Despite that it returns to the same small range for the most part making it feel one note. Clean, medicinal, peat and smoke, just less than you would expect.
It isn’t bad, I want to make that very clear. This is a perfectly fine whisky that does what you would expect from an Islay – leaning more medicinal than most Ardbeg and, as mentioned, cleaner, but for that it is fine. It just isn’t particularly anything outside that, no huge stand out notes, not even the peat, not great complexity.
Again it is fine, those fruit notes are nice, but there are so many better peaty whiskies for a fraction of the cost and easier to get.
Fine, but a disappointment.
Background: The final of the whiskies at Independent Spirit’s Uber Whisky tasting. This is described as the “smokiest Ardbeg ever to mature into existence” on their website and “Possibly the smokiest dram in the world”. The possibly I am guessing is there due to the ever changing ppms of the Octomores that come out. Anyway Ardbeg is a pretty peat heavy whisky at the best of times so I was very excited by this. As always, by this point of the night I had already had a few drams so was not at my best, but I still did my best to turn out understandable notes.
