Home Food Restaurant Reviews Recipes Drink Distilleries Whisky Gin Craft Beer Locations Scran Podcast A new, rare, bottling of Ardbeg has been announced. Ardbeg has released its first vintage of the millennium – the ultra-rare Ardbeg Vintage Y2K whisky. Intensely sweet and classically peaty, this 23-year-old whisky is the first edition in a highly-limited series created during a milestone year at Ardbeg.
While the year 2000 will be remembered by many for bootcut jeans, flip phones and the elusive millennium bug, it went down in Ardbeg history for very different reasons. Following decades of neglect, the distillery had been saved from extinction by The Glenmorangie Company in 1997 and restored. As the clock ticked over from 1999 to 2000, Ardbeg was returning to full production.
And while the rest of the world partied, with many distilleries shut down in fear of computerised chaos, its dedicated stillmen stayed up all night to keep the spirit flowing. Crafted with some of the very first spirit of the millennium, the inaugural edition in the Ardbeg Vintage Y2K series is unlike anything that came before. It was distilled in the historic still which served Ardbeg for 51 years, before being retired in 2001.
With an increased rigour applied to cask selection under the new ownership, the whisky was laid down in some of the finest bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks around. The result is a single malt packed with bright zesty notes and intensely sweet, sooty flavours – a smoky anomal.
