02/10/2026 An Ardbeg to welcome October

When Francis Cabrel wrote a song about this month, he spoke of dead leaves, mist and scarves, woolly jumpers and an anaemic sun we hardly saw. In 2026, October means 20-25*C, sweaty commutes and watering the plants that have endured the sun all day long -- with rain water, since there is still a hosepipe ban going on. Hard to stay chirpy, innit.

33.52 10yo 1994/2004 Rowan jelly and menthol cigarettes (58.3%, SMWS Society Cask, Refill Hogshead): nose: it is a farm-y one, with ploughed fields, peat bricks and mercurochrome poured onto them. There are hints of vegetation as well, mosses and roots of all kinds, that pave the way for a more-typical Ardbeggian nose: fishnets drying in a field and ink. That (black) ink comes to dominate the picture, given a few minutes, and lets drier notes emerge: charred skewers, spent incense, scorched earth. There is even a whiff of manure desiccated with ashes and chalk for sanitation purposes. The second nose is purely farm-y, with muck, manure and other natural fertilisers (agricultural lime comes to mind). Mouth: fruit, straw and cereal at first. It has unripe white peach, dried Korean pear, straw bales and roasted barley. Chewing shows just how strong it is, but also sets the straw on fire and douses it with black ink to extinguish it. Mussel shells appear, after a while, in parts salty, sandy and petrolic. The second sip has unripe citrus peels, earth, some moist, some dry, unripe berries trampled into the mud, and dried hazelwood consumed by a flame. To a lesser extent, it also has salt and pepper. Finish: it kicks more modestly than expected and it displays heated (not burnt) earth, ink, fishing nets after a day in the sun, a dollop of petrol and a minute quantity of mentholated roasted barley. It gives a strangely-liqueur-like impression in how it sticks to the tonsils. Retro-nasal olfaction detects sphagnum moss and lichen stuck to the side of an empty vase. The second gulp has more dried lichen and residue in an evaporated pool of stagnant water. Scorched earth and a pinch of sugar certainly join smoked plums in the frame, yet, once the sphagnum moss and lichen have shown their faces, it is harder to see past them. 8/10 (Thanks for the sample, PS)