Whisky review no. 19 - Ardbeg Uigeadail

Good morning. Or evening. Or afternoon I suppose. Possibly good night if that happens to be the case. I've finally got round to another whisky review. This time it's Ardbeg Uigeadail, a very pleasant whisky from Islay that I've had kicking around for quite a while. Let's get into it.

Bit of an intro

Right off the bat I'm going to have to confess that I'm quite a fan of Ardbeg. I've never had a whisky from them that I haven't enjoyed, although I've only had Uigaedail and ten year old. It's an Isley distillery as I've already mentioned so we're expecting a nice bit of peaty smokiness and at least some level of phenolic, cemical loveliness. (or chemical weirdness if you're not into peat. I wonder if that's genetic like someone told me liking fresh coriander is. Tastes like soap to me.)

The name Ardbeg is an anglicized version of the Gaelic " An Àirde Bige" and means "The Small Pomontory". I had to look up promontory. Turns out it means a high point of land or rock protruding into the sea or other water, so a kind of headland. It can also be part of a plateau overlooking a lowland. It's another Gaelic word for a bit of Scottish geography. There seem to be a lot of those in the whisky industry. Uigaedail (pronounced Oog-a-dal) means "dark and mysterious place" and is apparently a reference to the loch that provides the water source of the distillery. The distillery itself started distilling in 1798, but they started producing commercially in 1815 so they celebrated their 200th birthday in 2015. I've only had a cursory glance at their website and it looks like they've been up to some interesting things, like making an Ardbeg branded tractor and shooting whisky into space, presumably to entice aliens to interact with the human race. Very odd. My favourite thing about the website was that when you have to put in your year of birth to look at it they didn't have a list of years starting in the current year making me scroll back for ages, they had a list starting in 1915 so I had to scroll forwards for a change making me feel young. Thanks Ardbeg. Initially they produced whisky for use in blended whiskies like most distilleries did, and by 1886 they were producing three hundred thousand gallons a year and employed sixty people. Pretty impressive for the time. They stopped production in 1981 which is the year I was born. I assume they all downed tools to marvel in amazement and the beautiful English baby who they sensed would grow up to have a fairly mediocre whisky review blog. It took them eight years to come to terms with the new age of enlightenment that had dawned but they started production again in 1989 and continued at a fairly low level until 1996, during which time the distillery was owned by a guy called Hiram Walker. It was bought by Glenmorangie plc in 1997 and full production was resumed in 1998. In 2004, a year after Uigaedail was first released it was bought by the French company Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE. I expect you recognize at least one of the names there.

Uigaedail as I'm sure you've noticed by now doesn't have an age statement. In fact the standard ten year old is the only expression from Ardbeg that does have an age statement. When they started leaving out the age statement almost no one else was doing it so it was kind of a gimmick, but now a lot of distilleries are doing it. I usually use Uigaedail as an example of a good reason to do it as I believe they use a couple of different whiskies at different ages blended together, one of which is young a therefore has a nice peaty punch to it. I may have mentioned before that the smoky flavour breaks down relatively quickly and a peated whisky that's more than 20 years old will tend to have very little smokiness left. The smoky flavour seems to be Ardbeg's signature so they want to have a good bit of smokiness in the whisky, but blended with the characteristics of an older whisky to make something really interesting. However, because of the labeling laws the age statement, if they were to use one, would have to be the age of the youngest whisky in the bottle which I think is about 7 years old, so this would be Ardbeg 7 year old and wouldn't sound particularly appealing. From a marketing perspective it's worth them going with a name and not the age and in this case it's no bad thing. I had a conversation with the guy in the whisky shop at Heathrow airport a while back which was the origin of something I'm going to put in the extra comments about age statements.

This particular bottle is the standard 70 cl size. It's bottled at a healthy 54.2% abv, which is the kind of thing you'd expect from a cask strength whisky, although the box says it's "bottled at high strength". This is because they add just a little bit of water so that the strength is consistent across each batch. Personally I find it quite interesting when each batch is slightly different, since you can identify which batch you have and you know that your next bottle won't be identical. I guess Ardbeg are taking a slightly different marketing approach than say Springbank are with their cask strength releases. Springbank are releasing numbered batches which are all slightly different with different strengths etc. Aberlour A'Bunadh would be another example. Ardbeg seem to be aiming for a consistent product. I assume the idea is for people to so "oo, Uigeadail, that's really good!" rather than "oo, Ugeadail. I wonder if this batch is good."

Let's see, what details have I not covered yet? Oh yes, one of the most remarkable things about this particular bottle of loveliness was the price. I found it in the tax free at the airport in Stavanger on my way to see my old friend Mr. Tiffen for just 399 Norwegian kroners. That's £35.68 in real money which is a bargain and a half with bells on. It's $46.58 in US dollars, €41.07 or 33.48 IMF special drawing rights.

There's no chill filtration on this one, so we can expect a more complex finish than there would have been had they chill filtered it. It does't say there's no caramel colouring added, but I suspect they'll just be using a touch just to make sure each batch is the same colour the same way they're using just a drop of water to make each batch the same strength.


Packaging 
I'll start this section by saying that I think Ardbeg's bottle design and packaging are possibly my favourite of any distillery, although Lagavulin's up there. Let's have a little peep. I just typed poop there by accident. Feel free to do that if you need to. Maybe you already are. It's not my business.

Very whisky-ish

The box is a lovely dark shade of green and relatively plain. No fancy pictures of anything at all, let alone glens or beaches or distilleries. For some reason the shade of green used reminds me of my old friend Mr. Tiffen's parents' house. I find the nice Celtic style lettering quite appealing. It's stereotypically Celtic rather than genuinely Celtic. It's a little understated too, like the general design of the box, and doesn't come off as inauthentic even though in a way it is since it's a marketing thing. They're clearly pitching it as a sophisticated, quality drink to be appreciated rather than a party drink. Kind of looks like they're aiming for older adults too, rather than trying to appeal to a younger generation like some distilleries seem to be doing with their packaging. Bruichladdich for example. Nothing wrong with that, I assume they still plan to have a customer base in fifty years time. The huge A on the box still manages not to be brash and obtrusive because of it's nice dark colour. Subtle. The sides of the box are also nicely plain. So plain I only bothered to take a picture of one side.

Kind of plain, but not completely.

The quote on this side is a description of the whisky in tiny gold writing. I quite like that they've kept it small. It's there if you want to have a look and compare notes, but they're not overtly telling you what to taste. This is what it says:

A taste of Uigeadail
An intense symphony of smoky peat reek, scrumptious fruit cake and leather. Warm and deep with a spicy kick. Long, luscious and full bodied."

As a description of a whisky it's not bad. There's a bit of flowery language used but that's ok. Symphony, for example, wasn't a word I used in my personal tasting notes. I suppose it means there's a lot going on. If they'd described it as "a bloke playing the triangle of smoky peat reek" it would suggest a more one dimensional experience. Using the word complex might make it sound difficult or inaccessible to people just starting out in their whisky career. Symphony suggests something you're likely to enjoy even if you're not too familiar with it. Similarly saying "scrumptious fruit cake" rather than "bog standard fruit cake" is designed to make the flavour of fruitcake sound more appealing. I'll compare my own experience of the whisky to their description in the extra notes section. Scroll down and have a look now if you like, but be careful not to lose your place. The other side of the box is a quote from Jim Murray, a whisky author, about how much he likes Ardbeg. Probably worth them including it it, he's quite well known after all.

Pleasing

This nice little emblem is on the top of the box. Again, Celtic style design but not too fancy, giving the impresison that the quality of the product speaks for itself and doesn't need shouting about. Possibly, but maybe it just looks nice. Kind of eye catching and doesn't say anything. This whole section isn't very important to be honest. The gold square on the front of the box has the same pattern. The back of the box is where most of the information is.

A library of information

There's actually a fair bit of information on there, along with some slightly Lord of the Ringsy maps of Islay showing the loch the whisky takes its name from, and a nice etching of the stills. There's a bit more description of the whisky, although it's not this particular expression but a description of Ardbeg's spirit and is applicable to their other expressions. Smoky but not overly so and well ballanced by flavours from the malt. Apparently it's partly because of a unique purifying device that's part of the still and which no other still on Islay has. There's a note about why it's called Uigeadail, and the information that they've vatted different styles of Ardbeg for this bottling. I think it's different ages as I mentioned earlier, but there's a chance they're using different kinds of barrels too. I'm not sure about that, but for some reason I think good sherry barrels are hard to come by and so they might be using some sherry and some bourbon. I might be completely wrong about that though. Did I mention they use sherry barrels for this one? Don't know, I've kind of lost track at this point. I've spent months writing this and don't seem to get more than a couple of sentences done before I get distracted by a bird flying past the window or something. They also mention that it's non chill-filtered and let us know that the cloudiness known as scotch mist is normal and not something to be worried about.

Finally, a picture of the bottle

I like the shape of the bottle. It looks pleasantly old timey and is about the nicest looking whisky bottles I've encountered. The only one I've seen that was nicer looking was on a high shelf in a little shop in Edinburgh. It had a hand written label, was covered in dust and had a price tag of £14,000. I actually have an Ardbeg bottle that I use to hold candles. I thought the shape of it would look nice covered in drippy wax and it does, although the candles I've been using in it are made of quite brittle wax and the drips keep cracking off the bottle. It still looks Cool though, I just need a rough wooden table in a gloomy cabin to put it on. Also very slightly interesting to note is the green coloured glass used for the bottle. You'll find that most of the Islay distilleries use coloured glass for their bottles. The story I heard is that they started to do that so you couldn't see how light coloured the whisky was. Nice dark golden whisky does look more appealing and if you can see the whisky is a pale yellow wee kind of colour you're a bit less likely to buy it. I think the coloured glass is just something of a tradition for Islay at this point and not all of the distilleries there use it. Kilchoman and Bowmore don't, Bruichladdich use it for some expressions but not others, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain use it a lot, and so do Ardbeg. Nice story and it'll come up again in the next section.

 
Appearance
If you're at all familiar with Ardbeg 10 year old you'll know how light coloured it is. I tasted the 10 year old well before I ever tried Uigeadail and my lasting memory of it was that it was surprisingly light coloured. There's something of a tradition on Islay for coloured glass bottles that disguise the light colour of the whisky inside. Now here's the shocker: Ardbeg Uigeadail isn't light coloured!

Doesn't look as much like wee as the 10 year old.

As you can see in this visual representation of a glass of whisky it's not light coloured at all. I think I mentioned earlier, but they haven't given us much to go on colouring-wise on the box. The words "No colouring added" are suspiciously absent in fact. As we've gone over many times the rules are that they don't have to tell us if they use a splash of e150a caramel colouring in the whisky to increase it's visual appeal. Not having it is a selling point though, and adds to the appeal to whisky drinkers looking for an unadulterated, integrity presentation of the whisky, and so if there's no colouring they usually say. I think I said earlier, but given that they add a little water to this whisky and call it "high strength" rather than calling it "cask strength" for the sake of consistency of product across the different batches I therefore suspect that they add just a touch of caramel colouring for the sake of consistent colour across batches. If I'm completely honest I'm not convinced I can taste the caramel coulouring in whisky even if it's present in such large quantities that the whisky's beginning to get a bit of an orange glow (which it does with a lot of cramel colouring). Some people reckon they can detect a bit of a burnt sugar note, which would make sense because caramel it pretty much burnt sugar, and argue that caramel ruins the whisky. It doesn't bother me too much at this stage of my whisky journey though.

We do see a little scotch mist appearing in this one. I thought a little picture of that might be in order since it looks quite different from when you first pour it. Feast you eyes on this:

Misty

You're probably aware that the scotch mist is a sign that chill-filtration has not been used. Oils and proteins in the whisky begin to separate out and form tiny particles suspended in the liquid when you add water or when you cool it down. Adding ice should create even more than just adding water. If you weren't aware of that then I'm going to have to ask what you think you're doing. I mentioned it already where I was chatting about how it says non chill-filtered on the box. Pay attention, guys.

 
Smell in the bottle

Finally onto some tastes and smells. I'm considering starting the blog with a summary so you won't have to read through paragraphs of waffle about marketing techniques and stuff, but I probably won't.

On opening
Brown sugar first.
Peat smoke second.
Wood smoke.
Salty smoked fish, but less fish, more smoke and brine.
Petroly smell.
Piney, resinous wood.
Sweet smoke.
Phenolic, kind of medicinal.

Later 

Peaty phenolic at first, but not smoky as such.

Smoke arrives a few seconds later and is quite subtle.

Distinct cereally sweetness, like Sugar Puffs. "I want my honey" and all that.

Neat

This is surprisingly good neat and surprisingly easy to drink, especially considering the strength of it. It doesn't sting as much as you'd expect.

Nose
Smoky.
Piney.
Kind of fudgey.
Dried fruits.
Quite like cognac at times.
Bit stoney or minerally.
Soft boiled egg yolk.
Briney, quite sea-ish.

Brown sugar - interesting that it arrived after the smoke when it was in the glass, but was the first smell I identified in the bottle.
Baked banana.
A piney and phenolic combination that reminded me very much of toilet cleaner but not in a bad way - A note about that in the extra comments section.
Sage. My old friend Mr. Tiffen mentioned it as we shared a dram over skype. It was one of those ones where you're sniffing about smelling something familiar and then your mate says it and then it's really clear. I was smelling petrol at the same time which I think confused my snout. During some tastings I found the sage note combining with a more briney note to crate something quite sausage-like. Very nice.
Petrol, same time as the sage.
Parma violets and savlon - a note about that in the extra comments.
Possibly lillies, a kind of heavy, floral, aromatic thing.
Sweet charcoal - a note about that in the extra comments.
Something kind of savoury but tangy smelling, not unlike soy sauce.

Arrival
Sweet.
Deep earthiness.
Salty.

Development 

Deep earthiness and then intense alcohol sting. It's 54.7% abv after all.
Saltiness continuing.

Rich toffee.

Finish
Woody sweetness, maybe caramelized wood - A note on that in the extra comments.
Sugar.
Charcoaly.
Sweet smoky - It' a little surprising that the smoke arrived so late.
Nutty.
Hint of liquorice.

Water
I'm about to talk about how adding water changed things, but give me a moment. A guy dressed as a llama just came into the coffee bar I'm sitting in and it's distracted me no end...
 

Ok, back on track. It took me a couple of glasses to find how much water I liked in this one. It's strong, so I started out with 3 teaspoons. I've had this whisky before too, and I thought I remembered using 3 spoons last time I had a bottle. The whisky just didn't seem to have the complexity I remembered though, and eventually I figured out it was a little too diluted. I'll give you the notes for the 3 teaspoons first, and then you'll see how much difference getting the water right made.

Water - 3 tsp
Nose
Immediately more piney than when it's neat.
Softer sweetness.
Caramel.
Sweet mellow smoky.
Nuttiness.
Oily.

Touch of menthol, possibly wintergreen. Kind of mouthwashy.
Dried fruits, raisin I think.
Savlon.

Arrival
Rich and sweet.
Smoky-ish and growing in smokiness.
Complex.
Nutty.
Rich and oily.
Quite a long arrival I think.
Fermented apple - that taste cider has that apple juice doesn't.
Something a touch bitter and quite minerally. Like licking a pebble from the beach since it's a bit salty.

Development
Piney.
Menthol, maybe wintergreen. Apparently wintergreen is that mouthwash taste that's not quite mint or menthol.
Maybe bracken.
Sticking plasters.
Chocolate.
Something nutty, kind of hazelnut but I'm not quite confident enough to just say hazelnut
Mint - apparently quite a common note in sherried whiskies.
A little spicy, cinnamon, clove. pomander orange basically, without the orange. Possibly from European oak, which I believe has a kind of Christmas spiciness where American oak has a more vanilla influence on the whisky. Bit of a note on that in the extra comments

Finish
Savlon.
Long finish.
Sweet.
Dry smokiness.
Vanilla with a touch of dry woodiness - a note about that in the extra comments.
Slightly rubbery, like burnt rubber. A phenolic note. Bunnahabhain 12 has something very similar but much more noticable.
Prawn I think. A kind of briney seafood sweetness.

Certainly enjoyable with 3 teaspoons of water, but I was able to discern a lot more different flavours and aromas with a little less and I felt they were clearer while the complexity was maintained. In the end I settled on 2 teaspoons being about right, although obviously that depends on how much you've poured yourself and how big your teaspoon is. I have two sizes of teaspoon in my kitchen and try to stick to the larger ones for water measuring, but my larger ones aren't actually large as such. The small ones are tiny though, more designed for stirring the tea than putting sugar in it. This is what I was getting with just two teaspoons:
 

Water - 2 tsp
Nose
Peat smoke.
Medicinal.
TCP - Brand name of a British antiseptic solution that contains various phenols and sodium salicylate apparently.
Cow shed.
Briney, sweet/salt. Quite foody, like the saltiness in smoked fish.
Sea.
Seaweed.
Iodine.
Sardine.
Glace cherry.
Sherry-ish note. Kind of dried fruit-ish.
Black pepper.
Fried onion.
Very phenolic at this point.
Vanilla, I think from American oak, but there's a note about it in the extra comments.
It takes a while, but the sherry comes through as the water works on it.
Rich dried fruit.
Hints of clove, cinnamon, Christmas spices. I think European oak and there's a note on it in the extra comments.
Seaweed and iodine becoming more prominent at this point.
Dark chocolate
Oaky wood.
Faint hint of sulphur. Not in a bad way.
Smoke is there, but much less obvious now.
Hint of something vegetal, like we bracken or moorland. Reminds me of the Derbyshire peak district in the rain, so wet bracken and peaty moors, probably with heather mixed in but in a wet plant way rather than a floral way.
Hint of silage.

Arrival
Oily.
Smoke.
Sweet.
Nutty.
Briney, getting sweeter as the water works.
Something savoury, kind of sage but not exactly.
Savoury, not quite soy sauce, but kind of soy sauce.
Dark chocolate.

Development
Sherry.
Dried fruits.
Christmas spices, I think from the sherry cask influence. Note in extra comments. The sherry notes seemed to increase in complexity and prominence as it develops.
Chocolate
Olive oil.
Savoury, like less salty soy sauce. Umami goodness.
Olives, not just olive oil.
Hint of orange, like dark chocolate orange completing the pomander at last.
 

Finish
Nuts, Hazelnuts and almonds I think.
Dried fruits but not so rainsiny. Maybe sultana.
Hints of Christmas spices still lingering, most notably clove.
Touch of iodine
Vanilla.
Hint of tannin.
Touch of damp cellar.
 

A few extra comments
Something I heard in Heathrow - As promised here's something I heard from the bloke in the Whisky Shop at Heathrow: "Non age statements have become the fashion in whisky marketing now." This is sad news for curious people like you and I, although it does mean that the non age statemented whiskies that we see filling the shelves of every local whisky merchant's premises are not necessarily bad. Frustrating as it is that we don't get to say things like "this is rather volatile for a fifteen year old" and instead have to say things like "What does caoraich mean?", it now doesn't meant that the producers of Caoraich are trying to hide something by naming the whisky instead of giving us the age. Just to save you googling Caoraich whisky I'll tell you now that it's just Gaelic for sheep and I'm using it as an example of the kind of name whiskies seem to be given these days. The point is that a NAS whisky is not necessarily a bad whisky so we don't need to be snobby about them. The problem is that we know less about what we're buying and some people steer clear for that reason. Personally I do try to avoid them as I don't want to contribute to demand and give the message to the industry that we're willing to tolerate their cheekiness, but at the same time there are factor like pricing availability, and wanting to try something I haven't tried before to consider. Plus the fact that there are some NAS whiskies I know to be very good.

Toilet cleaner - I noted something that reminded me of toilet cleaner, which I felt like I should explain a little. I don't mean it tasted like toilet cleaner, or really that it smelled like toilet cleaner. What I experienced was a moment where a particular combination and balance of phenols (which are present in various cleaning products) and a piney note brought toilet cleaner to mind. Those particular smells are wafting about among the smokiness, sherry notes and all the other complex things that are drifting up your nasal passages and being detected by your olfactory bulb. It's not like you sniff it and think toilet cleaner, it's a moment among the swirling vapours where things converge into something not unlike toilet cleaner. Just for a moment. Those are the things I tend to write down, the moments when something among the complexity forms into something recognizable.

Parma violets and savlon - I always think parma violets have an odd aromatic quality that I never really managed to completely enjoy as a kid but which I don't mind now because I'm a grownup and grownups aren't fussy. Parma violets being a kind of candy if you were wondering. My old friend Mr. Tiffen's wife, Mrs Tiffen reckons parma violets are too much like savlon, which is a kind of antiseptic skin cream that has a smell that in whisky would be described as medicinal and phenolic. I believe it comes from lichens that were growing among the moss five thousand years ago and rotted down with it in the bog to form the peat. It's a compound that in the whisky comes from the peat smoke. I think they add some kind of a perfume to savlon so it doesn't smell too horrible but I could be wrong about that. (I just googled and it turns out I'm right about that. Leave a comment if you want to send me a gift for being such a colossal genius and I'll send you my address.) I couldn't find what fragrance they use in it, but fragrances tend to be floral. Anyway, Parma Violets contain anthocyanin which gives it the violet colour. As far as I'm aware anthocyanins are a family of chemicals, which may or may not be phenols as such, but they do have a ring of six carbon atoms with an OH group attached, which I think ought to make them qualify as phenolic compounds. I'm not certainn if they technically do qualify, but if they do there's a bit of a question about where that compound might be coming from in the whisky. Phenols are usually from the peat smoke, but anthocyanins occur naturally in grapes which are made into sherry. The anthocyanin that I may or may not have been detecting as a parma violet note may have come from the sherry barrel influence. The flavouring in parma violets is something else though, although I'm not certain if the colouring in them also has a flavour. The flavouring doesn't quite have the carbon ring with the OH group that phenolic compounds have, but it has a ring of six carbon atoms with other things attached which include OH groups. It all turns into complicated organic chemistry in the end. In summary, I don't know if the parma violet note is from the peat or the sherry, but I've enjoyed this moment of nerdy speculation.

Sweet charcoal and wood sugars - The casks used to age whisky are toasted to varying degrees inside before they're filled. In bourbon barrels it's usually a charring than a toasting, but whether it's toasted or charred They're applying heat to wood. The wood contains its own natural sugars plus sugars from whatever was in the barrel before that soaked into it. Those sugars get caramelized by the heat and the wood gets a bit charred, especially in ex-bourbon casks which gives rise to the sweet charcoal and wood sugar notes.

Changes over the years - Dirung my research I came across a review (one of Ralfy's) where he said that Ardbeg Uigeadail used to have a mature wood influence, but now it's a fresher wood influence. While I didn't recognize it as a change in the casks, I did recognize that it's changed a little since the first time I tried it around eight years ago. I've noticed changes is a couple of whiskies over the years, but I'm usually unsure if it's an actual change in the whisky or a change in my taste. Having had some really good whiskies now a whisky that's merely good doesn't taste quite as good as it used to even though it's still good. I can easily believe there's been a change to fresher casks though since there's apparently been quite a large increase in demand for whisky since I started drinking it. The increase in demand for whisky leads to an increase in production and therefore an increase in demand for casks. There isn't time for the casks to mature, which they do. Bacterial cultures in the cask add to the flavour of the whisky. In fact I heard of a cask that was used for whisky that was a good cask but too clean and the whisky in it received a poor maturation as a result. Even with the slight change over the years it's still a very good whisky.

Vanilla and Christmas spices -.Bourbon casks are made from American oaks and sherry casks are made from Eurpean oak because of where the two drinks are made. American oak imparts a kind of vanilla flavour and European oak gives a kind of Christmas spice flavour, like a mix od cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. You could call it allspice I suppose. I tasted both in this whisky, which was expected due to some of the whiskies in the blend being aged in bourbon barrels and some being ages in sherry casks.

Can you use up the smell? - While sipping whisky with my old friend Mr. Tiffen one afternoon in late summer his wife, Mrs. Tiffen, had a smell. She then asked an interesting question.She asked "Can I use up the smell?" The obvious answer is no, however it's not quite that simple. Because the water reacts with the whisky releasing different aroma compounds from the alcohol, and because oxygen in the air starts to change the flavours when it gets to the whisky in the glass the smell of the whisky changes over time, which is why you should take it slow. The particular mix of smells it unique to that particular sniff and so the particular sniff is indeed now used up. The sniff immediately after it is so close to it as close to identical as makes no difference, but give it five minutes and it will have changed subtly but noticably.

Conclusion
This is indeed a lovely whisky. Phenolic, complex, smokey, rich, oily, fruity, powerful. On the standard one to ten scale it's one of my favourites. Will I be buying it again? I certainly will, especially if I can find it at a bargain price again. Unfortunately I mentioned what a bargain it was to the guy on the checkout at the tax free shop at the airport and the next time I was there it had gone up by a couple of hundred kroners. I reckon it's still worth it at the normal tax free price, but it's now close to a thousand kroners in the government bottle shop in Norway which is more than double what I paid for this bottle and is possibly a bit steep.

Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed yourself reading this little review. It was rather long winded as my reviews tend to be, but if you have a drop of whisky while you read them I'm sure you'll be fine. If you have enjoyed it please write to your local council to register your appreciation. I'll try to get another one posted soon, possibly a mezcal, posibly another whisky. Who knows?