Colour:
White wine
Smell:
A soft, gentle, shy, sweet and balanced whisky with aroma’s of smoke, ash, subtle tar (railway sleepers), lemon zest, lime juice, licorice root, malt sugars, hint of lemongrass, pine, a hint of mint, shoe polish, creamy vanilla, toffee, apple, pear, salted caramel, subtle kiwi, green hedge leafs, hay, pineapple, tangy fresh marmalade, a hint of sulphur (pleasantly), soft iodine, aniseed, soft mineral tones, camphor and creamy oak.
Taste:
A soft, fresh, gentle and well balanced whisky with aroma’s of sweet honey, smoke, soft peat, ash, iodine, brine, subtle marzipan, lemon zest, pepper, green apples, peaches, candied lime, sweet ginger, vanilla, hint of peppermint, icing sugar, roasted nuts, stewed apples, white chocolate, gingersnaps, coffee with cream, slightly bitter grapefruit zest, some floral tones and subtle oak.
Finish:
A fairly short and fresh finish with aroma’s of smoke, citrus zest, lemon juice, vanilla, subtle ginger, white pepper, apples, new leather, fresh oak and at the end the peat smoke returns with some iodine tones.
Conclusion:
If you expect a big and bold Ardbeg than you are surely disappointed with the Blasda. But if you try to forget that side of Ardbeg this is quite an interesting and challenging dram. It takes some serious attention to extract the somewhat shy flavours and aroma’s of this whisky. The peat and smoke are more prominent that I expected and bring some extra complexity to the glass. Al in all a nice experience and interesting to taste the lightly peated side of Ardbeg. The only thing that could be tweaked in this dram is the abv. of only 40%. I thing it would hugely benefit when it would be bottled at 46% to 48% just to pack a bit more punch on the palate.
Marks:
8.8/10
http://www.worldwhisky.nl/review-347-ardbeg-blasda/