Serendipity 12 Year Old Blended Malt Whisky

Blended Malt Scotch Whisky
Bottled by: MacDonald & Muir 70cl / 40%

Ardbeg's curious Serendipity bottling from 2005. The official line is that this bottling came about when some 12-year-old Glen Moray was 'accidentally' added to what was supposed to be a new batch of Ardbeg 17-year-old, resulting in a blended malt that was 80% Ardbeg and 20% Glen Moray.

Coincidentally (or not), exactly the same thing had already happened at Ardbeg's parent company Glenmorangie a few years previously in 1999, when a batch of Glenmorangie 21-year-old had a cask of another single malt (almost certainly Glen Moray again) added to it, resulting in the '80:20' blended malt. In both cases, the result was a ton of favourable publicity and a very drinkable whisky at knockdown prices.

Anyway, Serendipity is a fine dram, whether or not you believe it really was a 'happy accident' or not. The whisky is actually very similar to some batches of Ardbeg 17 because many of those had some of the famous unpeated Ardbeg Kildalton added to the vatting, performing a similar softening and balancing process to that of the Glen Moray in the Serendipity bottling.

Serendipity is a bottling that can be argued about for hours among anoraks but the real acid test, as with all bottlings, is the taste, and Serendipity is actually a very decent dram as well as an interesting footnote in the Ardbeg mythos.

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