I first tried this back in 2022 and wrote that it was the perfect whisky for watching the world end. After two years of the pandemic it felt like we were turning a corner and that thoughts of the world ending could wait. 

In the intervening years the Doomsday clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has ticked closer to midnight and I have gotten older. The clock may be a construct, but it is a powerful warning, one that offers the opportunity for hope— time can be turned back. I may be irrevocably a bit older, but one thing has not changed, this is still a whisky for watching the world fall apart.

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Whisky: Ardmore 23 Year (1997), SMWS 66.197 “Let the world fall apart”

Country/Region: Scotland/Highlands

ABV: 53.3%

Cask: Bourbon Hogshead (21Y), Refill Spanish Oloroso Hogshead

Age: 23 Years (Distilled 23 Oct. 1997)

Notes: The aroma of an old forest fire set against sweeter tropical fruits and medicinal herbs. Faintly metallic elements, perhaps just iron-rich red dirt, mixed with tar and pineapple to wave a distant hello at the pineapple cannery, while fresher tropical fruits; lychee, mango, and soursop waited with mint and a kiss of lime. Scurvy was no worry with the fruity bounty that followed me into the dusty earthy and dry grass— a field after the pineapple harvest. Meatier qualities lingered in the background, shoyu cured blue fin tuna perhaps. Medium-bodied, the palate recaptured many of the same themes, starting in reverse order with a mellow, briny cured meat that bent around to dry grass and dusty earth among rows of pineapples later on. The fruitier elements were more subdued, charred pineapple and peaches, but still present behind ash and a touch of camphor. The finish was long with dusty earth, dry vegetation, and a bright pepper. 

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Score: 9 (90)

Mental Image: That lightness and calmness of air after a storm has passed.

Conclusion: The title of this bottle surely got me more philosophical than usual, but good whisky does that. My only regret is that I did not buy a bottle of this, though I am lucky our local whisky group split it and those with bottles have been more than generous in sharing them.