Ardbeg HEAVY VAPOURS

Profile: The Ardbeg HEAVY VAPOURS at a glance

• Limited Edition: The Ardbeg HEAVY VAPOURS
• Premiere: For the first time in the history of Ardbeg, it was distilled without a purifier!
• Exclusive bottling for the Fèis Ìle Festival: An experimental bottling in a limited edition

Portrait: What makes Ardbeg HEAVY VAPOURS special.

Ardbeg prides itself on being the ultimate Islay malt whisky. Founded in 1815, Ardbeg is revered by connoisseurs the world over as the peatiest, smokiest and most complex of Islay whiskies. Despite its smokiness, Ardbeg is known for its delicious sweetness, a phenomenon affectionately referred to as “the peaty paradox”. Ardbeg Day, the last Saturday of the Islay Music and Malt Festival, the Fèis Ìle, is this year on 3. June 2023. Celebrated worldwide and especially in the distillery, this year there is an experimental bottling in a limited edition: Ardbeg Heavy Vapours.

For the first time in the history of Ardbeg, without Purifier distilled. This filter over the still is critical to the excellent balance of peat flavors and floral fruitiness, the “peaty paradox”.
Without a purifier, heavier vapors also get into the whiskey because there is less reflux in the distillation. Hence the name Heavy Vapours. 
The balance of peaty, smoky notes and floral fruitiness known for Ardbeg shifts in favor of the smoky notes.

Dr. Bill Lumsden, Ardbeg's Director of Whiskey Creation says: "A missing purifer is something special. How does the taste and character of Ardbeg change? An experiment that has long intrigued me and the result of which Ardbeg fans can now discover - a truly exciting one Bottling."

Tasting Notes: This is how the Ardbeg HEAVY VAPOURS tastes

• Nose: rising smoke with some sweetness, intense, spicy and aromatic - a typical farmhouse scent drifts with crunchy aromas of old railway sleepers and tarred ropes - with a spritz of water dark chocolate cream interwoven with smoked artichoke
• Palate: Ardbeg's untamed dark notes appear, a burst of bittersweet erupts, disrupting ashy coal dust and shedding a veil of cardamom, peppermint and ground coffee, beyond which clouds of dark chocolate with menthol eucalyptus obscure fruity-floral notes that otherwise form the heart of Ardbegs - wisps of aniseed, cinnamon rolls and antiseptic lozenges on the tongue
• Finish: a long and powerful finish