Dear Mr. Colin Gordon

An open letter to Colin Gordon, Distillery Manager, Ardbeg Distillery, Port Ellen, Islay

Dear Mr. Colin Gordon,

I hope you are well. This not an empty and formulaic hope, but a genuine one. I hope you truly are well, because my colleagues at The Cabinet and I have reason for sincere concern. Allow me to explain.

The Cabinet is an exclusive whisky tasting society based in Winnipeg, Canada. While we make a point of trying whisky from any part of the world without prejudice, we have a particular focus on and passion for scotch whisky. More specifically, our tastes run to the Islay, Island, and coastal Highland malts. I'm sure you will be pleased to learn therefore that Ardbeg is a special favourite. We have rated the 10 year old, the 12 year old, the An Oa, the Wee Beastie, and the Uigaedail all very highly. Even the Supernova. And I have personally spent many a lovely hour at the Ardbeg Embassy at The Caledonian in Toronto. We are fans. We love your work.

Imagine then the scene at Robbie Burns Night this year, just last week, when The Cabinet met to try the newest Ardbeg expression, the Ardcore. Some of us wore kilts, and we're not even Scottish. This is the level of our devotion. The salesperson had brought the Ardcore out from a special locked room and placed it directly in the bag, so I didn't have a chance to examine the box. If I had, my concern might have begun to rise then. I noted only that it was bright blue and yellow. Fine. We are not sticklers for tradition. Then at the meeting the box was taken out of the bag and passed around for inspection. 

Punk rock single malt scotch. 

You're calling this a punk rock single malt scotch and have gone all out with the label and box design to underline this.

???

Is that like bluegrass Malbec? Or Wagnerian gin? Or alt country Weissbier? It's a non-sequitur. And - forgive me, but I'm going to be blunt here - it smacks of the crassest of marketing gambits. Before you picture us as a doddering group of ultra-conservative old gents with lavish nostril hairs and poorly knotted ascots, just two short steps removed from spending our days standing at the bus stop, shouting about the government, let me disabuse you of that. Ok, the lavish nostril hairs are close, but we are an eclectic group. One of our members played in a punk band. Punk features in our playlist. We are not anti-punk. Far from it. But you seem to be, despite assertions to the contrary. Using punk iconography to boost profits is... Well, you know what it is.

But that would all be forgiven if the whisky was good. But it's not. It's terrible, in fact. It's thin and utterly devoid of what makes Ardbeg Ardbeg. Smoke and peat can only be guessed at, and what you describe as "charcoal" is in fact closer to "ashtray". I suppose that's punk though. Give yourself one point. 

I could go on, but I suspect you've stopped reading already.

Why did you do this? For a laugh? Because you are unwell? This is why I asked the question at the start of my letter. Not just out of politeness. If that's the reason, I hope you are better now. This lapse will soon be forgotten. 

Or maybe we didn't think about this deeply enough. Maybe it really is punk - soak the bourgeois middle class for $230 (Canadian) by filling the bottles with what you'd otherwise have to dump. And tip a few ashtrays in. "Taking the piss". Just not literally, I hope. Now that would be punk.

With respect and hope for your recovery,

Kindest regards,

Philipp Schott

Secretary

The Cabinet

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

For our blog readers, here are photos from the evening showing what else we drank and actually enjoyed!