Did you notice the date is a palindrome? :-) It has not happened in a while (since 02/02/2020, to be precise) and the next one is not for 375 days (22/02/2022). After that, we will not see one before 13/02/2031.
Anyway, torn between waiting for this year's Ardbeg day, on 29th May, the 14th June, when this was distilled, and Belgium's national day, on 21st July, I feel now it is the right time to try this wee beastie.
Ardbeg 31yo 1974/2005 (53.4%, OB Single Cask for Belgium, Bourbon Cask, C#2738, 75b, b#48): with only seventy-five of these bottles made, they do not come much rarer than this. Of course, we have had this several times, over the past fifteen years (most recently in 2017), but never in the right conditions to take full notes. Also, this is a different bottle. Nose: funny how, for fifteen years, I have said these single casks were too cereal-y for me, yet after all that time in an open bottle, this one has lost that aspect completely. Today is all about smoked kelp and tarry ropes, squid ink and fishing nets, black-tide-hit sands and smoked-seafood platters. That tar, though!... Oils slicks, sea water, seaweed, kelp and litres of old ink, which hints at 1960s juice, more than 1970s. Exactly no-one is complaining about that, tonight. Next are creosote, coal gas, cordite, match tips, then back to ink again, with a faint whiff of smoked bran, all that is left of the cereal that was so predominant, fifteen years ago. This manages the difficult balance of being rustic and majestic at the same time. The second nose welcomes very tame fruit in the form of strawberry Fruittela and raspberry-filled dark chocolate. Suddenly, mossy peat passes by to balance the salty dryness on display. Finally, pears, poached in diesel, add a well-deserved (real) fruit touch. Mouth: at this ideal strength, it is assertive without being brutal. The texture is oily, with the same drop of lemon juice one would drop on smoked oysters. And smoke there is! It has an almost medicinal aspect to it, with gauze and tiger balm, Castoreum, surgical spirit and menthol. Soon, the seaweed-y, kelp-y side resurfaces accompanied by diesel fumes from a trawler bringing the day's catch to the pier. It seems to suck all the moisture out of the gums and teeth which is rather remarkable. Fortunately, it then it provides some vaguely-fruity respite in the form of peach stones. The back of the throat detects hot-sand dunes, hot clafoutis and India ink. Finish: long, inky, the finish sees fewer medicinal notes, amongst the smoky and sulphur-y ones: matchbox striker, diesel fumes, even spent fireworks, spent incense, ash. Then, more briny action, with capers in brine, anchovies in oil, rollmops, tapenade, a drop of red-wine vinegar. Finally, minerals rock up (aren't I smart?): pumice and pumicite, scoria, solidified lava and other types of volcanic rocks, ground seashells, and old ink again -- phwoar! This is dry, dry, dry, yet not quite austere: rather mineral. It feels like a teaspoon of ground Vishnu schist and gneiss from the bottom of the Grand Canyon, mixed with silicate-covered basaltic lava from Craters of the Moon, volcanic black sands from a Montserrat beach, black-olive tapenade from Provence, and a slice of peach from the Kunlun Mountains in China, all coated in pitch-black India ink. The more I sip it, the more I am transported onto a fishing boat, breathing diesel fumes and pickling herring fillets to make rollmops. In between two batches of fish, I nibble on charcoal crackers with tapenade, and I use a quill to write my darling a letter on parchment, using XIXth-century ink I found on a beach, amongst the kelp. What a dram! How did they do this? 10/10 (Thanks for the sample, kruuk2)
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