Ardbeg

 

Founded in 1815 by the McDougall family, Ardbeg has grown to become one of the household names in the global spirits industry. In 1911, the Ardbeg name and its iconic letter “A” is registered as a trademark.

 

The distillery produces a heavily peated Islay whisky using  malted barley sourced from the maltings in Port Ellen. The alcohol produced in the distillery was used in blended whisky, rather than as a single malt for most of its history.

 

In 1997, the distillery along with its relevant stocks, was bought by The Glenmorangie Company (LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton) for no more than £4 million. 

 

In a ground breaking experiment in 2022, Ardbeg partnered with Block Bar, the NFT marketplace for fine wine and luxury spirits to release a rare whisky named “Ardbeg Fon Fhoid”. The whisky was been been aged in second-fill Bourbon casks that were buried under a peat bog near the Islay distillery for around two years. The whisky’s name translates from Scottish Gaelic for ‘under the turf’.

 

In 2022, a whisky collector from Asia  bought a cask of Ardbeg distilled in 1975 for a record-breaking £16 million (US$19.3m). The sale price surpasses any auction record for a cask of single malt, and is also the distillery’s oldest whisky release to date. The ‘one-of-a-kind’ cask, Cask No. 3, contains liquid distilled on Tuesday 25 November 1975.