Are Ardbeg getting high off their own supply? Planet Ardbeg!

[BigShing]

So the latest committee announcement has dropped and Ardbeg have put together atheir very own comic book for visitors to the distillery to buy and enjoy, which has just been released online electronically to committee members. I've read it and it is complete nonse, beautifully designed because they got a proper comic artist in to create images inspired by the brand, but that's basically all they've done, just rbought an artist in to create some striking images, and then attached a barely functional narrative with a bunch of flavour buzzwords to justify some sort of "story".

It makes absolutely zero sense, just from a comic book/literary perspective, I mean their whiskies are named after Islay locations, so how hard would it have been to simply drum up a history of the island or the distillery, or just an explanation of how the distillery works, what the people who work there do, etc? Why not delve into Gaelic mythology or Scottish culture? Anything but empty artsy drivel.

I dunno, it just strikes me as the latest attempt to appeal to the yoof from a distillery that is just trying way too hard to be hip and cool. What the hell happened to Ardbeg?

[Albie]

Just read through it, it is well illustrated but it doesn’t appeal to me to buy. An illustrated history of Ardbeg and how they create each whisky would have been more appealing.

[Latic]

Didn't read it. Fun for some maybe. Disappearing up their own arseholes in my opinion.

[Carson]

A strange bit of marketing, yes it is well illustrated but how old do Ardbeg think their Committee members are. An illustrated history of the distillery and the whiskies they have produced past and present would have been much better.

[Bookie]

[mistah]

Ardbeg make fantastic whisky. But there's a limit to how much people will pay for fantastic whisky. In my case, somewhere between £25 and £100, and I think this is probably reflective of most whisky fans that are buying whisky to drink.

If you want to sell whisky for considerably more than this, you have to appeal to a different market. Basically, collectors rather than drinkers.

Ardbeg have managed to become one of the most collected brands of whisky, and I would guess they make far more profit from selling expensive limited editions to collectors than selling their (admittedly excellent) core range to whisky drinkers.

Stunts like the comic book are just a way of making sure the brand keeps getting talked about and remains prominent in the minds of collectors.

As a drinker, I do find all of this kind of nonsense quite off-putting. However, Ardbeg 10 remains a top-quality whisky - and great value when it occasionally falls below £40. So I'm inclined to just filter out their LVMH ( https://www.lvmh.com/ ) marketing *, and keep enjoying the whisky.