Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
We were there a few years ago, loved it. My favourite day was getting dropped off at Ardbeg, doing the tour and lunch in their restaurant, then walking the path to Lagavulin, Laphroig and into town. Proper tipsy by the end! It was hilarious at Laphroig when I went in the shop and realized I could collect "rent" for my plot of land I had registered years before. Got a free little bottle.
Did Ardbeg have any good special malts? They had Drum for us, which was delicious and different.
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We also collected our rent, but all but one of us hadn't yet registered for the Friends of Laphroaig thing yet. But we observed people walking up to the desk and saying "I'm here to claim my rent" and getting a free small bottle with no verification, so we just did it and got one too.
At Ardbeg, we were there the day before Hypernova was released, and they were very strict about keeping it embargoed, which was unfortunate. Cases of it were stacked in the store, but even our tour guide who was chummy with the staff couldn't get a bottle or a taste. I believe that our options for the tasting were Wee Beastie, An Oa, Corryvreckan, and maybe the regular 10. So nothing too "special".
I was pleasantly surprised by how tight of a whisky community there was there. Obviously it is a small place, but distilleries don't talk down about their competitors, and are often very kind about the other distilleries and what they produce. We even saw the Ardbeg guy in the parking lot of Laphroaig (right after he had given us a tour at Ardbeg) because he was there to meet his daughter for lunch or something like that.
Most are owned by massive conglomerates now anyway, but there really was a feeling of "we're all in this together". And despite their parent companies, most are still doing it the way they want to do it, and they way they always have done it.