Ardbeg Trudernish becomes its first permanent 15-year-old

Ardbeg Trudernish, the Islay distillery's first permanent 15-year-old, goes on sale from 15 September at £80 a bottle.

The whisky slots into Ardbeg's everyday range for the first time at this age, sitting above the 10 Year Old and Wee Beastie rather than arriving as a limited one-off, the format the distillery has favoured for most of its older expressions.

Trudernish joins Ardbeg's core lineup

Fifteen years lets Ardbeg's trademark smoke soften without losing its bite.

Trudernish is matured in a mix of ex-bourbon barrels, new charred oak and Oloroso sherry casks, then bottled at 48.8% ABV without chill-filtration. Ardbeg says the extra years soften its trademark peat smoke into a rounder, sherry-sweetened dram.

The name comes from a former settlement near the distillery on Islay's east coast, continuing Ardbeg's habit of pulling bottle names from the island's own geography and history.

The whisky has already picked up a Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2026, an early signal that judges rate the liquid ahead of its wider retail rollout.

At £80, Trudernish sits well above the standard 10 Year Old but undercuts many independently bottled 15-year-old Islay malts, positioning it as a step up in age rather than a collector's release. It also fills a gap in the range between the entry-level bottles and no-age-statement cult releases such as Uigeadail and Corryvreckan, which carry no year on the label at all.

A redesign across the whole range

Trudernish arrives alongside a redesign of Ardbeg's entire core range, with new labels and packaging for the distillery's existing bottlings rolling out globally from this autumn.

Ardbeg is owned by the Glenmorangie Company, part of LVMH's wine and spirits arm, and has built its identity on some of Islay's smokiest whisky, from the entry-level 10 Year Old to cult releases such as Corryvreckan. Islay's whisky trade has had a newsy year regardless: a single Port Ellen cask sold for more than one million euros at auction just a few miles down the coast, while Loch Lomond has been chasing its own age records elsewhere in Scotland with its oldest peated malt yet.

Wider distribution of Trudernish and the redesigned range is expected to reach markets outside the UK before the end of the year.