Ardbeg Grooves Committee Release
In this day and age, when people stand in line overnight, pay exorbitant prices on the secondary market, or cross their fingers and hope to win a lottery just for the right to purchase the latest limited release single malt or bourbon, does good whisky even need to be marketed? When’s the last time you’ve seen a marketing campaign for Pappy van Winkle? The Buffalo Trace Antique Collection? Or to take things to Scotland, any Springbank limited release? And yet all of those whiskies fly off shelves (if they even make it to store shelves in the first place) with virtually no marketing effort at all.
Ardbeg’s limited release whiskies tend to fly off shelves too, but the distillery still feels the need to offer up plenty of marketing surrounding their releases. And that’s fine, I guess. Ardbeg’s parent company, Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVHM), largely deals in luxury goods—the largest holding group of LVMH is Christian Dior. Companies like Christian Dior are basically 99% marketing. It’s in their DNA, and it’s unreasonable to expect it not to trickle down to the smaller parts of the company, like Ardbeg.
The marketing arm of Ardbeg comes out in full swing every year with the annual Ardbeg Day bottle release—any limited Ardbeg release is automatically a sought after item, and the distillery always makes sure to let everyone know about it. In recent years, Ardbeg has decided to give us two versions of their annual limited release expression—a “Committee Release” bottled at cask strength and extremely limited, and a general “Ardbeg Day” release bottled at a lower ABV (around 46%) and more widely available.
I managed to snag a bottle of the difficult to obtain Committee Release version of this year’s Ardbeg Day—Grooves. When you’re given the opportunity to purchase a Committee Release bottle, it’s pretty much a now or never type of decision. If you pass on it, you’ll likely never get another chance to buy it (at least not at anything resembling the MSRP, which is already quite high). Being a crazy whisky fanatic who has passed on bottles in the past and later come to regret it, I immediately jumped on my chance to buy Grooves.
I have to admit, I found the throwback marketing behind Grooves appealing—I guess I’m a sucker for the 60’s (even though I wasn’t alive back then). I like to think that I’m smart enough to be able to appreciate a well crafted marketing campaign without falling for the marketing itself, which of course makes me an idiot. Marketing or no, I’ve enjoyed the past Ardbeg Day releases I’ve had, so I was exited to buy and try Grooves.
A few quick words about the whisky itself… this Islay malt was matured (in part) in ex-red wine casks that were “intensely charred” to produce heavy grooves on the surface of the wood, hence the name Grooves. There was probably a good amount of ex-bourbon maturation here too. This is the Committee Release, and therefore it was bottled at cask strength.
Ardbeg Grooves Review (Committee Release)
Type: Single Malt Scotch
Region: Islay
Age: NAS
ABV: 51.6%
Non chill-filtered
Nose
Cinnamon raisin toast. Wood furniture. Sweetly smoky peat.
Palate
Sweet peat. Light wine influence… very light, barely perceptible. Fresh grapes and cherries. The cinnamon raisin toast from the nose is also found on the palate, which is nice (probably my favorite note in this malt). Briny. Anise. Citrus. The mouthfeel is thinner than you’d expect for a cask strength whisky matured in wine casks, a bit disappointing. Not terribly complex. Enjoyable enough, but I was expecting more. The mediocre mouthfeel is a strike against it.
Finish
Medium in length. Cinnamon tooth picks. A little tobacco. Slightly salty peat smoke.
Overall
Where the heck is the red wine influence here? I mean, it’s there a little. Barely. But compared to other whiskies I’ve had that were aged or finished in red wine casks, the wine influence is virtually non-existent, which to me is disappointing. It seems like ex-bourbon casks made up the majority of the maturation.
This is a confounding whisky. I’ve nearly finished off my bottle, and I still can’t decide if I like it or not. It’s OK I guess. It has its moments. The cinnamon raisin notes are quite nice. But Grooves is certainly not great and ultimately disappointing. I mean, if I’ve consumed most of the bottle and still can’t decide if I really like it, that’s certainly not speaking well of the whisky. Ardbeg’s last two annual Ardbeg Day releases, Dark Cove and Kelpie, were both significantly better than Grooves. And I’m not even talking about the cask strength Committee Release versions of Dark Cove and Kelpie, but rather the standard releases.
I’ve heard some people say that the regular release of Grooves is actually better than the Committee Release. I don’t have a bottle of the regular release, but I figured maybe if I watered down this cask strength version to 46%, I might get a general idea. So I measured out exactly how much water to add to get a pour down to 46%, and enjoyed a dram. It was fine. It did seem a bit more balanced at that strength, but also was a bit muted and watery, and removed the cinnamon raisin note (which is my favorite part of the whisky). I prefer it with just a drop or two of water, or even no water at all.
SCORE: 5/10
Final Thoughts
It’s pretty sad when Ardbeg’s special limited release is inferior to their standard range expressions, but that is the case here. The 10 year, Uigeadail, and Corryvreckan are all better single malts than Grooves. Heck, even An Oa, which I’m not a huge fan of, is probably better. You’d think Ardbeg would give us something more interesting in their annual Committee Release. 2018 really has been an awful year for limited release peated whiskies. Laphroaig Cairdeas, Balvenie Peat Week, and Ardbeg Grooves have all been huge disappointments.
Let’s talk about the price tag of Grooves for a minute. It’s an expensive whisky, at around $130-140. I get that red wine casks are expensive, but come on, they’re not so expensive to justify this kind of price tag when the wine cask influence is so minimal. Longrow Red is also aged in red wine casks and sold for about the same price (near me at least), but Longrow/Springbank is a much smaller (family owned) distillery than Ardbeg. Springbank has much higher operational costs (ratio-wise) than Ardbeg. And yet they manage to keep an age statement on their product, release a superior product, sell it quickly with no marketing effort, and still keep it at the same price (or lower in some markets) as Ardbeg. In other words, when you buy Grooves or any other Ardbeg Day Release, you’re paying a substantial amount for the marketing itself.
The 2019 Ardbeg Committee Release was just recently revealed to be a rum barrel finished whisky. They’re calling it Ardbeg Drum. Will I buy a bottle if presented with the opportunity? Ugh. I shouldn’t, but I probably will. I’m a whisky masochist. Hopefully 2019 will be a better year for limited release whiskies than 2018 has been.
Buying Advice: Quite frankly, Grooves isn’t worth anywhere near its price tag (around $130). Unless you’re an Ardbeg fanatic who has to have every Ardbeg release, I’d pass on this one. If it were literally half the price, it might be worth buying… although I’d still probably buy something else instead.
Drink This Not That: If you want an Ardbeg with some wine influence, Uigeadail and Corryvreckan are both vastly superior to Grooves. An even better choice for a heavily peated, wine matured whisky would be Longrow Red.
Questions about my scoring system? Refer to the Review Method & Scoring Scale page.
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