Day Three: Ardbeg

Wednesday morning, we continued our Islay distillery experience at Ardbeg. I didn't really know much about Ardbeg before we visited. I mean, I didn't know much about any of these places before we visited but I really didn't expect what we walked into at Ardbeg.

The morning we visited Ardbeg, it was rainier than usual. Like not just misting or showering but properly raining for a while. That, amongst probably a slight bit of laziness, is why there are somewhat fewer pictures of Ardbeg than Laphroaig  Also, we took a standard tour at Ardbeg, not a four hour epic experience.

It's not exactly black letters on a white wall, but it'll do. 

I said before that each distillery had its own unique personality. Nowhere was this more apparent than Ardbeg. I think I was probably irritating with my incessant focus on their presentation and branding. In my defense, anyone who has visited Ardbeg would probably agree with me that it's unique amongst distilleries.

This is the sight that greeted us as we arrived. Hi whisky!

 At Ardbeg, our tour guide was named Niall. He was probably also in his forties, but cut from quite a different cloth than Bryony - he was jocular, well muscled and quite tattooed. All the staff there wore black Ardbeg polos, with different adjectives used to describe the whisky. I don't remember precisely what was on Niall's shirt, but I think it was "Wild".

When you walk into Ardbeg, you enter a high ceilinged area where they used to prepare their barley. Ardbeg, like most of the distilleries on Islay (Laphroaig and someone else - Kilhommen? - being the exceptions) malt their barley at Port Ellen maltings, so the space formerly used for that had been converted into a reception area / gift shop / bistro area. It was high ceilinged and lit with interesting colored accents. Ardbeg had a fair amount of merchandise - not nearly as much as Laphroaig - but their style was quite different. Everything had sort of a celtic flair to it, reminiscent of the A on their logo. Their styles were geared younger than anywhere else we'd visited - zip up hoodies with bright pink lettering accompanied the usual solid colored t shirts and polos and the traditional Glen Cairn glasses had a tinge of green in the bottom.

We took the standard tour at Ardbeg, and Niall was a quite good tour guide (although, fairness compels me to point out that he was no Bryony). At this point, the whole system of washbacks, stills, etc. had started to wash over me. It wasn't that I ignored it, just that I wasn't as focused on the process. I did find it interesting that Ardbeg was one of the smaller distilleries we visited - only two stills and two washbacks. They did not have the luxury of a "silent season" like Bowmore (and Laphroaig . Ardbeg had to operate 52 weeks a year to put out as much as they could.

Beyond just the branding of the gift shop, I found Ardbeg's whisky strategy equally fascinating. Most of the distilleries we visited produced a couple of standard products with an occasional special bottling. Ardbeg more often produced special bottlings, and are known for their rather whimsical names for their special expressions. That is a word that I learned to use contextually from all the distillery talk. It may not be perfectly correct. Anyway, anyone can google Ardbeg and learn all this stuff, but I found it intriguing, and, moreover, fun. Their youthful vaguely celtic whimsical vibe totally worked on me.

The other incredibly smart move Ardbeg's made is that they used the majority of their empty space to open a bistro. The menu is simple - soup and sandwiches - but the food is tasty, reasonably priced, and popular. On a side note, we quickly found that food options on Islay were limited and somewhat uninspiring. This was not a food vacation. Ardbeg was about 3 miles out of Port Ellen, close to Laphroaig and Lagavulin. Anyone touring any of these three distilleries could either choose to eat at Ardbeg or head back into Port Ellen, where there were pretty much four options. The Islay Hotel, where we stayed, was the main restaurant. The food there ranged from average to delicious (chorizo mashed potatoes. Enough said.) but it was rather expensive and not quick. The White Hart Hotel also had a restaurant, where the food was basic and decent. Beyond that there was a bistro, which we never made it to and an Indian takeaway place. The Ardbeg bistro gave an option for people touring distilleries, it was affordable and tasty. Really clever use of space.

We left Ardbeg after our lunch. It was raining rather strenuously, which I found secretly relieving, for reasons that will shortly become apparent.