Like a cat toying with a mouse, the Ardmore single malt likes to flirt with its peat. This 1997 vintage is a perfect illustration. In fact, the deeply-impregnated peat doesn’t fully assume its central role until the fi – nish. Until then, it spends its time covering its tracks and playing hide and seek with the taster. So much so that this bottling could almost be said to have created a new concept: that of being influenced by peat without expressing peat.