Ardbeg 26 Years Old 1976 Cask #2390 (Feis Ile 2002)

Sherry butt #2390 was filled on 24 November 1976 and bottled on 27 April 2002, yielding 494 bottles for the Feis Ile festival on Islay that May. The 2002 festival release stands as a benchmark in Ardbeg's modern history, scoring 96 points on Whiskyfun and helping cement the Feis Ile bottlings as one of the most collected annual whisky traditions. Available only at the distillery on open day, drawing visitors to Islay during the last week of May.

Filled into a Spanish sherry butt during the late Hiram Walker era and matured on Islay for twenty five years through both mothball periods. The label describes the bottling at 26 years calculated by calendar year, though actual time in cask is twenty five years and five months. Bottled at 53.1% ABV with no chill filtration and no added colour, a full strength release with documented fill and bottling dates on the label.

The sherry butt format at 600 litres delivers slow extraction across long maturation while loading the spirit with melanoidins (Maillard browning), polyphenols from Spanish oak (gallic acid, ellagic acid) and rancio sotolon from oxidative ageing. These compounds bind to the 1976 peat phenols (guaiacol, syringol, 4 methylguaiacol) and shift the smoke profile toward leather, dried fig, dark chocolate and tobacco leaf. The purifier driven ester pool from Ardbeg's spirit still distillation persists across twenty five years as concentrated orange peel and candied citrus beneath the sherry oxidation.