Hi everyone,
If you’re a daveswhiskyreviews.com follower, you might have noticed that I’ve started a YouTube channel (Link here) tasting various whiskies in various states of blindness.
This next one was the blindest yet. My mate Tom sent me three samples from bottles he got for Christmas. This was the first and boy did he pick a tough one.
Despite knowing that Ardmore was his favourite, I didn’t think his Fiancée would get a different Ardmore to the one I told her to get for him… (sigh)
Anyway, you can watch me get it embarrassingly wrong HERE.
Ardmore 2002 Chieftain's Madeira Finish 46%
Colour: Gold
Body: Medium
Nose: After tasting it blind for youtube I now get rubber first, burnt rubber, pastry, lemon citrus but there's a definite off note to this getting in the way, herbal, I said Gin in the blind review but actually it’s more like Jenever, juniper, craft rye like spice to it too, turmeric.
Taste: Sweet arrival, lemon citrus, some pastry there too, very fresh then some of that Madeira funk, no rubber, not really much smoke but a little ash maybe, then you get some of that rubber from the nose and spice, some ginger.
Finish: Medium/Long length. A little more smoky here with that strange Madeira funk, little clue as to where the peat has gone though.
Bottled at 15 years old. Very little smoke to this actually, as I got with the blind review. A lot of weird/off notes here for me that really detract from the experience. Which is a shame because Ardmore is great, the spirit just hasn't melded well with the cask. Coming back to it after getting it very wrong on the blind review, I don't feel so bad as its very atypical of the Ardmore style.
69/100
Thanks for reading!
Scotch Review #570
Whisky Network Review #675
Network Average: 74.7
Best Score: 93
Worst Score: 22
0-49 Terrible
50-59 Bad
60-64 Just About OK
65-69 Ok to Good
70-74 Good
75-79 Very Good
80-84 Excellent
85-89 Superb
90+ Magnificent
Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.
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