Ardbeg 23 Years Old (Master of Malt)

Released through Master of Malt's Darkness! programme in 2015, the specialist sherry octave finishing series from the UK online retailer Master of Malt. The Darkness! programme works exclusively with 50 litre ex sherry octave casks, the smallest traditional Scotch whisky cask format, delivering intense sherry chemistry transfer through the high surface area to volume ratio of the compact format. The small cask size also means small bottle counts per release.

Matured at twenty three years before secondary finishing in an ex sherry octave cask and bottling in 2015 at 49.1% ABV, non chill filtered with no added colour. The Darkness! programme has run across multiple Scottish distilleries with octave finishing of various durations applied to long matured base whiskies, drawing out distinctive sherry expressions across the range.

The octave finishing format intensifies sherry chemistry transfer. Spanish oak polyphenols (gallic acid, ellagic acid) from the small cask staves combine with melanoidins from Maillard browning and rancio sotolon from oxidative sherry ageing. Layered onto the long matured Ardbeg peat phenols (guaiacol, syringol, 4 methylguaiacol, p cresol) with their established oxidative shift toward leather and tarred rope, the octave sherry finish brings dried orange, almond skin, walnut and bitter chocolate. The Ardbeg purifier ester signature persists beneath as concentrated tropical fruit.