Hey Everyone, welcome back to my site. It is December already. A festive season. We are all looking for presents for our loved ones, we are all creating/working on personalized presents and a lot more in this month. This month is different than all the others. I hope everyone has a blessed and peaceful December with full of love.

Today we are travelling to Scotland more specifically to the West Highlands, where Ardnamurchan distillery lies. This distillery stands really close to my heart, they create exeptional whiskies and I love their approach to whisky making and most of all, their incredible transparency that they provide through the QR code and the data presented therein. We are taking a look at their core range expression the AD/. Stick with me and see what this whisky has to offer.

About the distillery

Ardnamurchan is a 130-square-kilometre peninsula in the ward management area of Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for being very unspoiled and undisturbed. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access route being a single track road for much of its length. The most westerly point of mainland Great Britain, Corrachadh Mòr, is in Ardnamurchan.

Ardnamurchan distillery is considered one of the remotest distilleries in Scotland and takes its name from the peninsula. The distillery was built and is owned by Adelphi, an independent bottling company. Plans for the distillery were submitted in 2011 and approved by the local council in April 2012. The construction began in 2013 and the distillery was completed in May 2014. Ardnamurchan commenced production in 2014. The first official whisky of the distillery (meeting the 3-year statutory requirements) was released in 2017. In 2018, local children were given a charitable gift of Ardnamurchan whisky casks as an investment. As of 2020, the distillery had filled over 10,000 casks.

The distillery is powered by renewable energy to reduce the carbon footprint of the distillery. It is powered by both hydro-electric power and a large bio-mass boiler using timber from the nearby Ardnamurchan forest. The boiler provides heat to the distillery floor maltings. The distillery draws the water for its whisky production from springs above the distillery and uses the nearby Glenmore river as a source for cooling water. The distillery produces two styles, peated and unpeated West Highland whiskies.

As of 2024 they have put out their 10 year old release to the market, and I am waiting for my bottle and sample of it. I will be reviewing it shortly and I cannot tell you how excited I am to taste it as soon as possible.

Ardnamurchan AD/ - Natural Color, Non-chill filtered, 46.8%

"More awesomeness here from Ardnamurchan! You might be wondering what happened with the name on this one, did the folks at Ardnamurchan forget to add all the usual numbers to the end? Perhaps we got distracted mid-sentence by a colourful bird flying past, or a robot vacuum cleaner buzzing around our feet? The answer is simple, this is no mistake! Going forward, Ardnamurchan's AD/ bottlings will no longer have all those confusing digits. The whisky remains unchanged though, following its traditional combination of 50% peated and 50% unpeated malt, matured in a combination of 65% bourbon and 35% sherry casks." - by Master of Malt

We have developed an award-winning range of single malt whiskies from spirit maturing in our warehouses. Not only do we use a traditional mix of American and European oak, ex-sherry casks and American oak ex-bourbon casks but we also enjoy having fun with other types of oak casks that have previously held anything from white wine to mezcal, sauternes to madeira.

Our core expression AD/ sits alongside a range of limited releases and single cask bottlings, all of which benefit from the overall flavour profile that you would expect from our remote spot on the wild Atlantic coastline: gentle peat smoke, rich oily honey and dark fruit palate, chilli pepper, sea salt and a little more smoke in the finish.

We believe that the rugged west coast air gives our whisky a certain element that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

All our whiskies are un-chill filtered and of natural colour.

- by Ardnamurchan

Nose: A bit closed at first, but letting it air for approx. 5 minutes opens it up quite nicely. Green apples, salted caramel, muted peat, soft ash, crusty white bread, dusty books, mild medicinal note between menthol and iodine, cinnamon, nutmeg and maltiness. Freshly cut grass, hay, juicy peaches and salt.

Taste: Mouth coating and quite oily. Great structure. Cooked apple and pear pie, caramelized sugar, peaty malt, grilled nectarine, pineapple, salt and black pepper. It has a nice farmy style just like Springbank or Ben Nevis. Hay and freshly cut grass. I think the taste is quite complex, the 50/50 peated and unpeated structure is amazing.

Finish: Medium to long finish, ginger, pepper, light mint and mild oak. After a while some fruitiness appears in the form of green apples and papaya. Ash and dirt. Salted caramel, hay and smoked barley. Lovely.

Overall this is a great core range offering. If you like lighlty peated spirits like Ardmore or Ben Nevis perhaps Benromach, you will like this too. It has enough complexity and flavours for all scotch drinkers. Great price / value ration also. 87 / 100

The Whiskyjourneyz flavour hexagon

Today I am also introducing the brand new Whiskyjourneyz flavour hexagon. From now on I will be attaching my flavour hexagon with each whisky I review. I hope you enjoy it.

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Check out the points on all the whiskies I've rated and ranked head-to-head over HERE.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. To many more. Sláinte.