Ardbeg Blasda

Our local whisky club had met for the second time a couple weeks ago and the evening was slowly winding down.

Everyone had encountered whiskies that they enjoyed with the members trying Ardbeg Galileo, Aberlour Abunadh, Talisker 10 year old, Glenmorangie Nectar D'or and a semi unfortunate Jameson's 12 year old.

My brother in law had joined me in Campbeltown, Islands and Islay whiskies with very pleasurable results for the two of us. Lots of flavors and aromas and awesome mouthfeels.

It was time for us to grab our next drams and I was eyeing the Ardbeg Blasda.

Ardbeg is one of my favorite distilleries and at this time possibly my favorite Islay distillery and I'm always eager to try a whisky from them.

So I grab a dram of the Ardbeg Blasda at the very reasonable price of $16 for a dram and join the group.

Now from everything I've heard and read the Blasda is an experiement by Ardbeg in producing a whisky with much lower peat levels, something like less then half of the normal peat levels.

And it shows.

The nose is still peaty, but it's nothing like the Ardbeg's that most of us have tried before, 10 year old, Uigeadail, Corryvreckan, Galileo, etc.

It's a light peat smoke with just hints of charcoal, fruity with pears, apples and LOTS of lemon and lime. Very citrusy.

The palate follows the nose pretty closely, less smoke, more fruit. It's fairly sweet and even tart at times and is definitely an interesting deviation from the standard Ardbeg.

A short finish with peat and lemon sherbert end this interesting little experiment from Ardbeg.

This was an enjoyable little whisky and one that I'm glad that I got a chance to try. If you look hard enough you can find it in Australia for roughly around $110 or so, not a bad price for a nice little whisky.

However all that being said, if you're a huge peat freak I don't think you're going to walk away as happy as I did.

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