Following Trails of Smoke
You’ll need to travel far to score a bottle of Ardbeg Smoketrails, but here’s one spectacular Scotch worth going the extra distance for. And, of all places, Delhi! Now, that’s something new!
Flying out of the country these days is not easy. Between long security lines, flight delays, and being stuck in the middle seat, you deserve a reward for surviving an overseas journey. That’s why every time I travel internationally, I make sure I buy a bottle of Ardbeg Smoketrails. The best place is one of the largest duty-free shops in the world—at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, where the whisky and Scotch options are endless. I must add, however, that the duty-free prices of liquor at Delhi Airport are on the high side. I wonder why!
Most Scotch drinkers are familiar with Ardbeg Single Malt Scotch and also head for the Uigeadail and the Corryvreckan, but few have heard of Ardbeg Smoketrails because it's practically only found at duty-free shops. That’s right, you have to travel out of the country and browse through bottles at the airport to get your hands on this elusive and exclusive bottle of whisky. Make Smoketrails your go-to, as it marries classic Ardbeg with American oak casks and Manzanilla sherry casks from the Sanlúcar de Barrameda bodega, located on the Spanish Atlantic coast. It’s truly worth it. An excellent successor to Ardbeg’s other Manzanilla sherry cask 2013 Feis Ile Ardbeg Ardbog 10 YO, straying from heavily peated to full-bodied yet uniquely influenced by the sherry casks. It is at a rather low strength at 46% ABV, though it runs at 50 ppm giving you the smoke and peat you are looking for from Ardbeg.
The combination of classic Ardbeg ex-bourbon casks with Ardbeg matured in the Manzanilla sherry casks results in a lively dram. It's vibrant on the palate with hints of dark berry, pepper, ashy smoke, and walnut. The Scotch opens up to a peppery smoky flavour with hints of peat and fruity oak. The finish is clean and has little to no heat to it.
Ardbeg Smoketrails Travel Retail Exclusive series offers whisky lovers the chance to embark on a global flavour journey, with each single malt highlighting how casks from around the world influence Ardbeg’s signature character. The first release of the fusion of the classic Ardbeg American oak with Manzanilla sherry casks from Sanlúcar de Barrameda created a salty, maritime flavour combined with Ardbeg’s signature smoky intensity.
The second release sees an exploration of Côte Rôtie red wine casks from France’s Rhône region in Southern France, which imparts a distinctive mix of minerality, earthy aromas, and spicy complexity on Ardbeg's classic style, a new horizon of smoky flavour to enjoy. Ardbeg’s known for peat—and, while more subtly present, the sherry casks add a subtle char-smoked sweetness to Smoketrails. It’s a wholly unique bottle not only for Ardbeg but also for the entire island and region. Hence, the reason it's so hard to get a hold of.
While a duty-free international airport is the primary place to pick up a bottle of Ardbeg Smoketrails, there are a couple of other distant hiding spots. The first is the Ardbeg distillery itself, where Smoketrails is available for sale in the distillery’s shop. The other option is trying to track down a secondhand bottle, which will sometimes pop up for sale at retailers and online—with an average price of about $250 per bottle, which makes it a true duty-free gem at an airport probably far away—and worth every mile travelled.
Tasting Notes:
Colour: Pale Gold
Nose: Deep, pungent flavours take to the air, a curious combination of tar, saddle soap, pine resin and Brazil nuts. A very aromatic whisky, with lovely herbal notes and a hint of moist peat bog, while storm-churned sea spray soars overhead. Robust peat smoke. Tar, burnt oak, balsamic glaze, and smoke from burning newspapers. Char siu pork. There’s not a huge amount of ethanol and we find we can get our noses deep into the glass. With water, some chocolaty notes appear, a mite less than expected, along with a touch of engine oil.
Palate: Full-bodied with dominant peat smoke. A slightly drying mouthfeel, followed by deep, pungent flavours that hurtle across the palate: tar, soot, dark chocolate and a very distinctive nuttiness, like Brazil nuts or hazelnut. Caramelised brown sugar, then red fruits in the form of pomegranate and cranberries, finally the spice appears in the form of cinnamon.
Finish: Plumes of fennel and pine billow up, leaving a long, lingering trail of carbolic soap, aniseed and leather. Subtle sweetness too.
Overall: Best without water, but even undiluted it’s not as smoky as the typical Ardbeg. It’s also missing some of the heavy flavours/notes linked with Ardbeg, but an excellent whisky to have.
Since this expression follows in the footsteps of the Ardbeg Ardbog of Feis Ile 2013, it might be worthwhile having a relook at the predecessor.
THE ARDBEG ARDBOG 10 YO 52.1% ABV
A rare vatting of different styles of Ardbeg where rich, salty whiskies are balanced with softer, sweeter casks to create a dram of great depth and peaty complexity. Stated age 10 years, 52.1% ABV, no colour added, un-chillfiltered.
In Ardbog, Ardbeg celebrates its peaty roots in the marshy wetlands of Islay; Ardbeg's smoky sweetness has been intriguingly interwoven with salty, savoury whiskies which have slumbered undisturbed in rare ex-Manzanilla sherry casks, all for at least ten long years.
The 2013 Ardbeg Day whisky is called Ardbog, released on June 1, 2013 initially as an Embassy exclusive. Taking inspiration from their last few releases, this is a down-to-earth whisky, concerned with the history uncovered as you dig deep into the peat bogs of Islay. The whisky is a vatting of 10 year old spirits and older, 60% matured in bourbon casks and 40% in manzanilla casks for a balance of soft, sweet and earthy flavours.
Colour: Deep ochre
Nose: Deep, enticing waves of pecan nuts, salty toffee and caramels, with a distinct whiff of herbs, lavender and violets. Sweet honey, old wet mossy oak. Soft, aromatic smoke is interwoven with salty savoury notes. Water brings forth herbal notes, smoked rhubarb and aged balsamic vinegar. Underlying candy sweetness with a bit of tar and preserved lemons (Moroccan style, in salt).
Palate: Big - it feels like all the moisture is being sucked out of your mouth at first but in a good way. More brine up front, along with sweet apple and lemon, bitter pith, coal smoke and dust, and a rich earthiness underneath. A full oily/tingly mouthfeel leads into a powerful, savoury burst of flavours – salted cashews and peanuts, clove, aniseed toffee, green olives and a curious hint of anchovy, pickled onions. Sounds odd but it’s honestly superb! A lingering aftertaste in which classic Ardbeg sweetness is kept in check by oak tannins, clove and coffee grounds. Quite dry after the initial sweetness, with sour woody notes creeping in around the edges.
Finish: Long, with apple skin, lemon peel, salted caramel, dry oak and a touch of black pepper. Honey / caramel with the lemon notes becoming more boiled-sweet like.
Overall: Opens up after a few minutes. An interesting balance of salt and smoke, although maybe a little bit dry for some. More salt than normal Ardbeg. A whisky made for hipflasks.
ADDENDUM
What is Peat?
Peat is a spongy material formed by the partial decomposition of organic matter, primarily plant material, in wetlands such as swamps, muskegs, bogs, fens, and moors. The development of peat is favoured by warm moist climatic conditions; however, peat can develop even in cold regions such as Siberia, Canada, Scandinavia and Scotland. Beyond its considerable ecological importance, peat is economically important as a carbon sink, as a source of fuel, and as raw material in horticulture and other industries.
Peat is actually far more fascinating than first impressions might suggest. It is a relic of the Carboniferous period some 300 million years ago when much of what is now the UK was swampland. As trees, roots, ferns, grasses, animals and even people died or fell into the swamps they were subsumed into the stagnant water and partially decomposed, but did not rot away entirely. Instead an organic fuel formed by their decomposition. Peat is black because of its rich carbon content (the CO2 is not released into the atmosphere as normally takes place in decomposition around oxygen). Yet compared to wood, peat is relatively inefficient to burn. Without a proper furnace, it tends to smoke rather than create much heat.
The wetlands in which peat forms are known as peatlands. The peat formed and housed in these special ecosystems is the largest natural terrestrial carbon store, as it sequesters more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined. Peat is thus critical for preventing and mitigating the effects of anthropogenic global warming. Peatlands also help minimise flood risks and filter water, both of which are invaluable ecosystem services. Peat harvesting and land-use changes that damage peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and in the 21st century, the use of peat increasingly has been discouraged in an attempt to protect these valuable ecosystems.
The whisky industry, however, uses peat freely and quite a number of whisky brands use phenols generated by the burning of peat in their whisky manufacturing process. The Island of Islay is particularly famous for its bestselling peated whisky brands.
For a long time a lack of alternative fuel forced Scottish 'Highlanders' to burn peat. Coal was simply too expensive for most and there were few trees. The situation began to change around the turn of the 1960's, with the help of technological progress in large industrial scale maltings. It then became possible to produce vast quantities of malted barley without peat. Speyside and Lowland distilleries were amongst the first to change to coke (a high carbon form of coal) as a combustible, as new railway networks to transport the fuel encouraged the transition. More remote regions like Islay persisted with peat.
Today, there's no question that peat-smoke derived flavours in whiskies are increasingly desirable. Consequently, peat is now used not only on Islay by the likes of Ardbeg, but also on Orkney, in the Highlands, Campbeltown, as well as in Speyside. Peat is usually extracted close to the distillers or maltsters. Distilleries prefer the top part of the bog, because the upper crust of peat found there tends to be 'richer', more rooty and generate more smoke and impart more flavour.
At some stage of his or her drinking career, every peat freak has probably wondered why peaty whiskies don't all have the same kind of 'peatiness'." Instead, we find that peat comes in a remarkable array of sensory guises, and also contributes an almost oily mouth feel, as well as added depth, richness and sweetness. Its flavours are expressed differently in whiskies from different distilleries and range from notes reminiscent of lanolin, wet wool, iodine, seaweed, bacon, tobacco smoke, engine oil, tar, manure and wet earth.
As parts of Scotland are covered by a metre-thick layer of peat, it's been supposed that different types of organic matter in the different regions, have created different types of peat which impart, in turn, different flavours to the finished whisky. For example, historically there have been few trees on the Orkney islands so there are no tree roots in the peat, making it lighter and quicker to burn. Whiskies from this area, like Highland Park, tend to have a more lightly smoked flavour than Islay malts. Is this an argument for 'peat' and 'terroir'?
A study on the composition of peat in the production of Scotch Whisky and the influence of its geographical source, extraction depth and burning temperature analysed "Peat samples from four locations Islay, Orkney, St. Fergus (Aberdenshire), and Tomintoul (Speyside).” It revealed that "The ratio of phenol was the major discriminator between the samples of the different geographical regions, explaining more than 60% of the variance. St. Fergus and Islay samples were characterised by high percentages of guaiacols (aromas described as aromatic, phenolic, burnt, woody, bacon, savoury, smoky, and medicinal), syringols (aromas described as aromatic, phenolic, spicy, smoky, baconlike, sweet, medicinal, creamy, meaty, and vanilla), and phenols (aromas described as aromatic, phenolic, burnt, woody, bacon, savoury, smoky, and medicinal) in the burnt peat. Relatively high proportions of carbohydrate derivatives in the burnt peat characterised Tomintoul and Orkney samples."
In the distillate (new make), the origin of the peat could be clearly identified by analytical methods. By sensory analysis (by human nose), the spirits using Tomintoul (Speyside) peat were more medicinal than the spirit using Orkney (Hobbister) peat. The level of peat aroma was low in the St-Fergus spirit (Aberdeenshire) despite a high abundance of aromatic peaty aromas, but the spirit was sweet, spicy and medicinal.
The upshot of the study indicates that the source of peat will have an impact on the flavour of the whisky. It's a conclusion which may reignite the debate over Scotch whisky 'terroir' beyond the simplistic Highlands / Islands / Lowlands trichotomy. If for you, that's just all too involved, simply pour yourself a glass of Smoketrails and revel in the remarkable synergy that whisky and ancient earth can offer.
ADDENDUM Courtesy Nicks Wine Merchants, Australia
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