Ardbeg celebrates World Cup in Dullstroom

MBOMBELA – Ardbeg Distillery recently challenged 100,000 fans from 150 countries,including South Africans of course, in their alternative take on the World Cup. Fans were invited to participate in an exhilarating peat football tournament on International Ardbeg Day ,Saturday May 31, in Dullstroom to win the highly coveted Ardbeg Peat Football Trophy.

Because of its similar characteristics,Dullstroom was selected to represent a little piece of Scotland, and was a fitting town to pay homage to the peat wetlands and muddy sports fields of Islay, bringing to life Ardbeg’s take on football and the FIFA World Cup™. Participants went from clean to dirty as teams played knee-deep on peaty mud pitches, competing in peat football, welly boot shoot out and shorty foosball.

Referred to by the Islay locals simply as “football”, Ardbeg hosted peat football matches at prestigious venues around the world, welcoming any player courageous enough to compete in the ultimate, mud-splattering test of endurance and dedication. A tasting of a first ever Ardbeg Day release in Africa, Ardbeg Auriverdes was also held as a reward for all worthy football participants.

“Every year we welcome hundreds of our fans from all over the world to the distillery on Ardbeg Day. This year we decided to take Ardbeg peat football to the world, with events from Taipei, to San Francisco, London and South Africa. To be honest, the boys at the distillery play football in the peat every week – I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” says Mickey Heads Ardbeg distillery manager.

Ardbeg prides itself on being the ‘Ultimate Islay Malt Whisky’ and was voted the best Scotch whisky of the year three years in a row by Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible. Ardbeg was also recently awarded the title of ‘World Whisky of the Year’ by Whisky Magazine at the 2013 ‘Icons of Whisky’ awards ceremony.
For more information on Ardbeg, please visit www.ardbeg.com.