The Ardbeg Alligator Committee Reserve*

Tasting notes:
     On the nose, this dram is a felt-tip marker used to make a Bison hide, dried in a cave with peat smoke, resemble more closely reptilian skin.  The peat and smoke on the nose are beautifully balanced and invite the noser into the aforementioned cave to discover more wonders therein, including the complete fossilized remains of a velociraptor gnawing on a caiman that had inadvertently wandered into a caveman’s fire–lying just beneath a cave painting version of the Kama Sutra.  The mouth leads one out of the cave, as it were, to the higher reality of refinement that the nose obscures ever so slightly.  That is, on the mouth one comes to participate in the essence of Islay in its ideal, Platonic form.  Either that, or it’s like anthracite flavored Orbitz™ gum that will surely blacken, rather than whiten, one’s teeth.  The finish adds a note of brininess, albeit a controlled one:  the flavor bubbles up as though from the charcoal filter of an aquarium populated only by defanged moray eels (you know, so you can play with them…).  Add water, and it turns this dram into a powerful tool, quite unlike Donald Trump.  It’s much more like Wittgenstein’s poker…or the business end of Socrates’ irony:  it’s sharp, commanding, and likely to leave lesser individuals at a loss.
  

Our thanks to Joshua Hatton for helping Stephen get this bottle (quite a while back now)…