Ardmore SMWS 66.57 “Asian delight”

Thanks to /u/throzen for sharing a dram of this one.

Think of something that’s tough to order: Sex on the Beach. I was one of those dirtbag bartenders who once made a joke when a woman ordered one. I still feel like a giant pile of excrement, yet without the ability to grow things, based on that comment.

I was a moron.

Thus when I asked someone to pass me Ardmore SMWS 66.57 “Asian delight”, the two Asian people in the room had an argument of who gets to have sex with me.

I deserved that.

Ardmore is one of those whiskies that I have a hard time believing they make rough stuff. And then someone points out a review that I’ve done and mention I’m not THAT in love with them. However lately I’ve had some good ones, enjoying the peatiness, the different earthiness, and chocolate that I find in there. Which sounds like I’m into butt stuff too much, and I’ll just say here and now: No, that’s not what I meant.

Thus ignoring the hard time you have asking for this, let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Price: Sold out

Region: Speyside

Date Distilled: 16.03.2004

Age: 10 years

Cask Type: Refill ex-bourbon barrel

Outturn: 214

Abv: 59.1%

Colour: 7.5Y 9/4

Nose: Vanilla, peat, pear, grassy, umami

Alright, less of nuanced peat and more of just… peat. There’s more grassiness than smoke, more vanilla than I was expecting. Almost like this is first fill.

There is some interesting tea/soy elements to this that I wrote as just umami. It just reminds me of those things, I guess.

Taste: Lemon, caramel, smoke, pear, white raspberry

Alright, less earth, more generic lemon, pear, and smoke.

It does eventually have this not so tart but kinda tart raspberry element on it. It falls in to the whole dram like it didn’t know you were having a party and it forgot to wear pants.

Finish: Caramel, mushroom, caramel, peat, milk chocolate, butter

Finish is probably the best part of the dram, as it actually starts to wake up. That said, the sweet chocolate/caramel aspects and the peat/mushroom vegetal aspects are mixing about as well as the KKK and anyone with sense or respect for humanity or without a sexual love for their cousin.

Not well, in case you missed that. Their fucked up.

Conclusion: Meh. Really not one of the better Ardmores out there. This was all over the place, and seems to be missing something. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been peated, or perhaps it should have been dumped into a new cask, or maybe it should have been left alone.

Whatever the reason, we end up with a pretty boring nose and taste with some unique aspects, and then a finish that really tries yet never gets it right. This is a skip from me.

73/100

Scotch review #882, Speyside review #254, Whisky Network review #1405