Ardbeg Provenance 1974 Limited Edition

Ardbeg Provenance 1974 Limited Edition

$6,800 AUD

55.6% 70 cl

Ardbeg Provenance 1974 has a special resonance with Ardbegians since it was bottled in 1997 at 23 years of age to commemorate the rebirth of the Ardbeg distillery that year when Glenmorangie PLC acquired it.

Its WhiskyFun rating was an amazing 95. There were 5,000 bottles from the Bourbon casks used for maturation. This is bottle No 1331 complete with handsome wooden presentation box.  

Official Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose is truly memorable. Simmering peat, almost oily in its composition with a rich bourbon character unaccustomedly weighed down under with heavy smoke. An intense malt with the peat and oak very much in evidence but balanced.

Taste: At the start the malt is soft but then the smokiness beings to intensify. Powerful cocoa which constitutes the centre stage of the whisky’s personality which is chewy and enormously deep and powerful. Bourbon is clearly in evidence.

Finish: The finish is long and complex, even by Ardbeg standard. The deep and rich start to the malt has now settled down a little declaring the oak and malt with just a hint of of fruity ripeness. At last the smoke comes through, perked up with a touch of pepper and gently followed by the bourbon oakiness which finally signs off.

Comments: Hold on to the palate for as long as you can and you will be in no doubt what makes Ardbeg so very special. It has a high quality aged-bourbon character which teams up with a delicate malt and powerful peak – a touch of class.

This product is located in the United Kingdom

Distillery

Ardbeg Distillery

The renaissance of Ardbeg is one of the most pleasing success stories of the Scotch whisky industry in recent times. Ardbeg had enjoyed a very buoyant existence in the 19th century, despite its relative remoteness, as noted by Alfred Barnard when he visited it in 1885. Ardbeg had been mothballed in 1981 and remained so until 1989 when it reopened but by then under the ownership of Allied Distillers. They closed it in 1996 and sold it the following year to Glenmorangie plc.  Things then started to happen with the opening of a visitors’ centre in 1998, some deft marketing (including the launch of the Ardbeg Committee in 2000) and the introduction of some imaginative NAS expressions under a captivating new label.

Ardbeg, like Glenmorangie, has continued to flourish under French ownership following the acquisition of both by LVMH in 2004.

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