![]() ![]() Making matters worse, the annual Limited Editions arrive with names and livery that are noticeably more exuberant than their demure siblings in the distillery’s core range. While it’s not that difficult to pass on a 5-year-old NAS bottling with a $50 price tag, the Limited Edition releases present an annual opportunity to override my better judgment and splurge. I’m almost certain that Ardbeg counts on this temptation as part of its marketing strategy. Hope springs eternal there’s always the possibility that the next bottle out the doors of Ardbeg might offer a satisfying experience to us mere mortals who only have available to us that which turns up on retail shelves. ![]() It’s too crowded.” In the same way, the insatiable hunger for Ardbeg from consumers, collectors, and flippers has turned off would-be fans like me. In keeping with the theme of great Big Apple humorists (whether intentional or not), it occurred to me that this aforementioned Catch-22 is a type of variation on Yogi Berra’s droll observation about a New York restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. Call me a Groucho Marxist, but I’d never buy an Ardbeg Limited Edition that I’d be able to purchase. It’s the Ardbeg Paradox: I believe that any release from the distillery that I have a chance of getting (without buying it from a reseller at an inflated price) is probably not worth my time. The announcement of a new expression from Ardbeg gets my pulse racing momentarily, before a type of fatalistic cynicism kicks in. ![]() In all, there are as many reasons to be cautious about Ardbeg as there are to be constructive. Others have had similar experiences, though this is by no means a dilemma unique to Ardbeg. When I recently revisited the Ardbeg Uigeadail, I noted that this was a bottling that I liked to greater and lesser degrees when I tried prior batches in years gone by. I have my misgivings about the corporate parent’s motivations, given the increasingly lackluster outturn from other distilleries in their portfolio.Įven among Ardbeg’s mainstay expressions, there’s not always the consistency that is supposedly the holy grail for whisky producers. I’m positively inclined toward the distillery in a general sense but have had mixed experiences with the specific whiskies I have tried. I like an Ardbeg, but I do not like all Ardbegs. ![]()
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