After years of quietly sipping away at their whiskies, and occasionally selling a bottle or three, we are very proud to announce that The Whisky Exchange at Vinopolis has been invited to become an official Ardbeg Embassy β a privilege only extended to a handful of specialist whisky retailers around the globe.
As an Ardbeg Embassy we will always have a healthy range of bottles from the distillery open to sample in store and, most importantly for any Ardbeg Committee members out there, we are being given a rather special 4.5 litre bottle of the new Ardbeg Alligator for its Committee Exclusive launch on the 1st June, with explicit instructions to share it with Committee Members who happen to wander by.
To celebrate the start of our ambassadorial duties we’re running an Ardbeg tasting tonight with distillery manager and ‘Chief of Mission’ Mickey Heads. Unfortunately there are no tickets left – you need to be on our tasting mailing list to get advance warning of these kinds of things.Β We predicted that this one would be popular so we elected to distribute the tickets by lottery, and itΒ was fortunate that we did as we received enough applications to sell out the event ten times over. There’ll be a report up here soon to let you know what happens…
With the embassy opening its doors on June 1st , we’d like to invite any Ardbeg Committee members down to TWE @ Vinopolis this Saturday, June 4th, to glory in our Ardbegginess and maybe a try dram of 10 year old (or something ‘snappier’) in celebration of our new status. For those who can’t make it then feel free to pop by whenever we are open – wave your Committee credentials and we’ll see what we can do for you.
Comments
So the Alligator is being released tomorrow (1 June) for Ardbeg committee members? Strange there has been no email communication from them, perhaps they are trying not to repeat the online incident last year when Rollercoaster was released?
Marc: If you check your inbox now…
Got the email and they were sorry, that they couldn’t send bottles to committee members due to EU tax laws.
That’s bonkers. What has changed since the Rollercoaster? Nothing.
Now I have to do business in the Netherlands with people I haven’t done any business with in the past.
I think they want to get out of the distribution business and let companies like TWE do the job. Which they are probably better suited to.
I have seen the people at Ardbeg struggling with the workload when another committee bottling had to be on it’s way.
But don’t give the blame on tax laws.
So are embassies having the committee bottling on stock, or are we to wait for the general release in September?
Yes thanks Billy π Been online trying to order for the last 30 minutes already π The site is at least up, but painfully slow and my order won’t finish processing. *sigh*
bgulien: As far as I know the Alligator will be web only until September, although the Embassies should be getting some bottles to let Committee Members have a taste.
Marc: The site’s been getting slower… I’m giving up until tomorrow π
Get use to the new economic”hardtimes” Committee Members in the States know all about it.
That being said I got my notice from Ardbeg via e-mail today and a phone call from the best whisky store this side or any side of Chicago that my Gator was ready and snappin to go.
Hardtimes but sometimes Gator Good Times!!
If you have friends or relatives in the UK, you can order your bottle and have it shipped to them. They can then forward it to you (as long as it’s less than 70% alcohol and less than 1 liter, Royal Mail allows the good folks of the UK to ship a bottle to other EU countries.
It worked for me!
PS. I would like to extend my gratitude to Ginny (not sure about the spelling here) at the Ardbeg Visitor Centre for helping me out!
It looks like it’s not only the USA who have some bottles on the ground, we just had a posting in our Facebook group that Systembolaget in Sweden has a few bottles.
It will be on general release in September, so feel free to wait until then and buy it from us if you’d like π
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