Ardbeg buried two whisky casks under Islay peat for 34 months; just 456 bottles were released, and one later sold at auction for £1,350

Most of us have probably lost something in the dirt at some point. It might have been a ring at the beach, a charger in the garden or something else altogether. Ardbeg did something similar, but on purpose. According to The Spirits Business, the Islay distillery buried two casks of whisky in a peat bog close to its site and left them there for nearly three years. The whisky then became the distillery's first NFT, a digital token linked to a physical bottle. The team treated the process as a flavour experiment. Only 456 bottles came out of it, which made the release rare from the very beginning.Why bury whisky in a bogThe idea was the brainchild of Dr Bill Lumsden, who led whisky creation at Ardbeg at the time. In 2014, a team led by then distillery manager Mickey Heads buried two casks of mature whisky near the distillery. They were both second-fill bourbon casks, which are basically oak casks that had previously held bourbon and had already been used once to mature Scotch. The ground in question was a peat bog, and that matters. The University of St Andrews peatlands exhibition explains that peat is formed when waterlogged soil inhibits the decomposition of plant material. Ardbeg reported that this was the first time the distillery buried barrels in oxygen-depleted, waterlogged ground. The casks were kept underground for two years and 10 months, totalling 34 months. They were then dug up about three years after burial and moved back into the warehouse, where the whisky continued to mature for several more years. After that it was blended and bottled at 45.5% ABV ahead of its April 2022 release.What did the bog really change?It is hard to say exactly what the bog changed. The same trade report said the time spent underground was said to give the whisky earthy, mossy, and herbal flavours rather than the smoking intensity that is Ardbeg’s trademark. But tasting notes aren't lab results. A 1995 review in the journal Forestry by J.R. Mosedale discussed the effect of oak properties on flavour. The review also explains that their scientific understanding of how cask properties shape maturation is incomplete, but that choosing casks for the effect on flavour was still possible. This makes a buried cask hard to judge. The whisky also had extra years maturing in a warehouse after the dig, so the bog cannot take all the credit for the work.A rare bottle with a digital twist The name of the bottle was Fon Fhòid, which translates to “under the turf” in Scottish Gaelic. The release was just as unusual as the ageing process itself. It was launched on the BlockBar platform on April 19, 2022. Each of the 456 tokens represented a 70 cL bottle. Moreover, buyers could trade their tokens in the platform's marketplace. Owners of the token could start taking delivery of their bottles from BlockBar’s secure storage starting December 1, 2022. The price was 1 ETH, the cryptocurrency Ether, which was about £2,363 at the time of the release announcement.What one bottle fetched laterOne of those bottles was later part of an online whisky auction that closed on January 23, 2023. The listing noted that the owners needed to redeem the NFT to receive the physical bottle, one of the 456 numbered bottles. The final bid was £1,350. That’s about 43% less than the launch price of about £2,363, but the numbers weren’t a perfect match. Ether’s value often changes, and there can be additional fees on top of auction sales. So, one sale suggests very little on its own. It does suggest, however, that a rare bottle might not always fetch a higher price later. The real attraction is the story behind it. Ardbeg turned a patch of wet ground on Islay into a flavour experiment, and 456 bottles carried that story forward.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.