Category Archives: Whisky from Master Quills Travels

Laphroaig Week – Day 3: Laphroaig ‘An Cuan Mòr’ (48%, OB)

Laphroaig SignDay three of Master Quill’s Laphroaig Week and we are still in the territory of Official Bottlings (OB). Probably one of the nicest NAS (No Age Statement) Whiskies around is the Laphroaig Quarter Cask, but just like other distilleries, Laphroaig seem to have gone berzerk, issuing lots and lots of NAS Whiskies lately: Brodir (Port), PX Cask (self-explanatory), QA Cask (partly uncharred oak), Select (I hate that name) and the Triple Wood (Bourbon, Quarter Casks and Oloroso Sherry). Like so many other (NAS) Whiskies, the Laphroaig at hand: An Cuan Mòr (Big Ocean), was released to travel retail but it seems somehow pretty available everywhere else too.

From the Laphroaig website: “All have been matured in first-fill-only ex-American white oak bourbon barrels in our warehouse right next to the Atlantic. This whisky is then carefully re-casked and left to sleep in the finest European oak.” Alas no word about age or how long both particular types of casks were used. Oh well, we’ll have to do with the end result, and not care about age then.

Laphroaig An Cuan MorColor: Orange brown gold.

Nose: Hefty and rubbery. New bicycle tires. I like this. Not your ordinary Laphroaig. Dry red-fruity peat (dare I say medicinal?), and lots of (dry) Sherry influence. (I mean dry as a result, not that the Sherry is dry). It’s hard to get past the rubbery elements in this. The red fruits come across as the cherries in modern and new world Pinot Noir Wines with forest strawberries and raspberries. Probably the new favorite malt of Christian Grey (or Dorian Gray for that matter). Hints of Vanilla, but the rubbery Sherry is so hefty it’s hard to pick up lots of the masked notes.

Taste: Ashes, sweet and fruity. Laphroaig themselves mention burnt apricot and that fits the bill. Let’s not forget the peat. Well balanced, and a great development throughout the body. Halfway through: paint, licorice. Good ABV. Candy sweetness and fruitiness. Winegums and vanilla. Nice warming body, and all the strange aroma’s are working extremely well together. Long lingering finish, and never a bitter wood note.

Yes, They’ve done it again! Another Laphroaig love it or hate it Malt. I’m loving it. What a great WONKY NAS this is. For some, completely over the top, but isn’t that what Laphroaig is all about. Isn’t that what Lamborghini is all about. They should make crazy stuff, that’s what they are here for. Both make love it or hate it products, and in my opinion both are trying to be too nice with their latest offerings. Concerning Laphroaig, just look at the toning down and  over-sweetification of my beloved 10yo (they have ruined it!) and the Select. (I hate that name). Many of you won’t understand why I love this An Cuan Mòr so much, and that’s OK. Laphroaig are releasing quite a few other Whiskies too, and they all are pretty different and decent, so pick out another one, you’ll be all right. Leave this one for me (and Franc W).

Points: 89

This one is for Billy “Wonky”Abbott and Franc “The Mayor” W.

Laphroaig Week – Day 2: Laphroaig 18yo (48%, OB, Circa 2012)

Laphroaig SignAll good things come to an end, and after that they come back again. It happened to Lagavulin 12yo, and it is said to happen shortly to Laphroaig 15yo. Not yet, but soon very soon though, with a special 15yo commemorating Laphroaigs 200th anniversary. Yesterdays 15yo was eventually replaced by an 18yo and by some curious coincidence we’ll be having a look at that very replacement right now. Is it a step up from the 15yo, or maybe a step down? One thing is certain, the ABV went up a few notches from 43% to 48% and the box didn’t come back. The bottle I’ll be reviewing now, is still an 18yo which looks like the release that replaced the 15yo. In 2013 the look for the 18yo was slightly revamped.

Laphroaig 18yoColor: Light gold.

Nose: Peaty, salty and pretty smoky. Kippers with seaside saltness. A promise of salt and smoke. Warming and vegetal. Garden bonfire, and wet freshly cut peat. Mocha. Lit fireplace in an old farmhouse. Good nose but very straightforward. You more or less get what you’ve come to expect from a modern Islay Whisky. Islay Whisky, not especially Laphroaig even. When smelled longer I also get some deeper, more meaty notes. Dried meat again, warming and salty.

Taste: Definitely more points in the ABV department (when compared to the 15yo). Again, also in taste more straightforward. Burning wood and quite sweet actually. Lots of ashes and licorice powder. Ferrero Rocher cherry bon-bon fruitiness, combined with licorice root, fatty peat and smoke. Again it is what you might expect.

This 18yo lacks the awesome specialness of the 15yo. They are both Islay and both Laphroaig, whereas the 18yo is straightforward and obvious in what you are getting but the old 15yo is much more than that. It delivers more aroma’s than the 15yo, and the delivered aroma’s are more special. The 15yo is very fruity ánd Islay, The 18yo is ónly Islay. Yesterday’s 15yo to me is a special Laphroaig, this 18yo is indeed a modern Laphroaig which doesn’t surprise, it’s decent, it’s good, but it doesn’t bring anything extra to the table anymore. Dare I say that it’s good but a bit anonymous? Is the 15yo a Whisky they can’t make anymore? I don’t mean that particular age statement…

Points: 85

Laphroaig Week – Day 1: Laphroaig 15yo (43%, OB, Box, Circa 2005)

Laphroaig SignSecond of March and it’s still winter over here. Days starting with scraping ice from car windows and the occasional slippery road. Now and then a faint, watery sunshine and even a snowflake was spotted this year (luckily). Since this is primarily a blog about Whisky, why not try seven Islay Whiskies for conditions like this? Seven I hear you say? Yes you understood correctly. You know what that means, another Master Quill Week! I already mentioned Islay, but what are we going to do with Islay? Not too long ago we already shared a Bowmore Week, and yes, now it’s time for another week about a single distillery (from Islay). This time we’ll be focussing on Laphroaig, as you already might have guessed considering the sign above. Why another Islay Distillery? Simple, because I felt like it! But it’s not ony that. 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of Laphroaig! Up untill now three Laphroaigs graced these pages with their presence. At first an independent bottling by The Ultimate, next up was the official 30yo and last, but alas also least, the new Laphroaig NAS named ‘Select’. These three are a selection of official and independent Laphroaigs, a selection of Bourbon and Sherry casks. This week will be no different. Today we’ll have a look at the boxed version of the 15yo. In 2006 Laphroaig replaced the box for a tube, and I’m guessing this example is probably from just before that time. Laphroaig 15 BoxColor: Ocher gold. Nose: Ahhh great fruity peat. Yellow and red fruits. Black coal. Coal dust and ever so slightly tarry. Small hints of vanilla ice-cream. A truly fantastic nose. Just the nose alone shows you that Whiskies like this can’t be made anymore. Maybe this is an older expression of the 15yo (bottled before 2005)? Slightly burnt wire and steam. Hints of cooked vegetables emerge over time. Taste: Sweet, clay and fruity again. Not very peaty and the taste is much simpler than the nose was. Hints of almond shavings and a kind of delayed warming sensation. Elegant and pretty old tasting peat. Part of this Whisky must come from older casks. Crushed beetle, and cask toast in the finish. Burnt wood. Almonds ánd Amaretto combined with some sugared yellow fruits. Cancel my remark about (the lack of) complexity. Not true. It needed some time to develop. Given even some more time the fruitiness develops more and more into Amaretto and the peat develops into a wonderful kind of peat, ashes and a little bit of smoke. Top notch! Extremely different from my first love from around that time, the 10yo at export strength (43% ABV). Remember the 20cl hip-flask bottle? This 15yo is a lot more elegant and nicely crafted. Utterly complex and a wonderful companion to that 10yo. I haven’t even mentioned the cask strength version of the 10yo from that time. What a trio that was. Life was good back then! By the way, Laphroaig will be releasing several one-off special  bottling commemorating their 200th anniversary and supposedly one of them will be a 15yo. Hope it is anything like this boxed 15yo.

Points: 89

Glenfiddich 18yo “Married in Small Batches” (40%, OB, Batch #3404)

Slowly but surely we move on up (and down) the rather large collection of Glenfiddichs, the mother of all malts. Earlier we’ve already covered the 12yo “Special Reserve” (80 Points), the 15yo “Solera Reserve” (82 Points) and the 15yo “Distillery Edition” (83 Points). The odd one out was a Vintage 1974 (91 Points) bottled for the nice people of La Maison Du Whisky in Paris, France. This time around we’ll up the age again and move from 15yo up to 18yo and with that, we arrive at a bottle that was married in small batches. The latest offering of this bottle is now called Small Batch Reserve, maintaining the 18yo age statement.

Glenfiddich 18yo "Married in Small Batches" (40%, OB)Color: Full gold

Nose: Malty, waxy (like in old bottles), and very fruity. A fruit mish-mash since no specific fruit is discernable. A vegetal and new wood smell. Nice and elegant. Dusty but also creamy. Nice combination between vanilla and the waxyness I mentioned before. Not overly complex for a malt of this age, but it does have great balance and is well made around good maltiness, the wax and the fruit.

Taste: Waxy and lots of woody notes. Wood, oak, cardboard and just the right amount of bitterness. Next toffee, caramel, creamy not sticky nor sweet. Hints of the wax is in here too. Malt and old cellar notes. Peanut skins and maybe walnut skin bitterness right at the back of my tongue. Vanilla, but typical vanilla you get from American oak. Definitely a Glenfiddich with some (wooden) balls. OK at 40% and definitely is presented as an old (18yo) malt. Like the nose, this is not overly complex, but very drinkable (even with this wooden bite). This lacks the fruit I got in the 15 Distillery Edition, and lacks the acidity I got from both 15yo’s. This is definitely older and spicier (like it should) and placed in the range as such. Despite the oak, this has a short finish.

Often scuffed at and I never got that. Even if it would taste lots worse than it actually does, I still love the history and the pioneering work done by this malt. But it doesn’t taste bad, and it is pretty good stuff. Why does it have a bit of a reputation then? Sure the 12yo is pretty simple, and most of them are bottled at the lowest strength possible. Most anoraks prefer “the other” Grant brand Balvenie. Yes it’s not complex, but very enjoyable nevertheless and very inexpensive to boot.

Points: 82

For Tony, Mr. Glenfiddich!

 

Benromach 30yo (43%, OB, First Fill & Refill Sherry Casks)

For those of you who haven’t noticed it, Benromach is HOT these days! Since the day word got out Gordon & MacPhail are taking over the distillery, people started to take an interest, but nothing more. But all of a sudden Benromach seems to have arrived. The core range got a bit changed and the look modernized. Big winner from this all: The Benromach 10yo and when it was released later in 2014 The Benromach 10yo “100 Proof”, both reviewed by me lately. Gordon & MacPhail are some kind of synonym for quality, so even though the 30yo, we are about to review, was distilled under different management, The Whisky was cleared for release.

Benromach 30Color: Light gold with a pinkish hue. Sherry all right.

Nose: Extremely malty and waxy. Stuff you smell from older Whiskies. Wood excellently blended in, never to overpower. Great balance already. Vegetal oil and old polished furniture. Polished a long time ago for the last time. Next dry and powdery. Aren’t there any sherry note then? Yes there are. Although this could be from different kinds of Sherry casks, I’m especially picking up notes from Fino Sherry, hence the light colour? Although Fino’s are quite dry or even bone dry, This Whisky’s aroma promises some sweetness. Distant remnant of smoke and coal. The whole has some “oldness” to it.

Taste: Sugary sweet, (marzipan, vanilla), with fruity Sherry. Dry old raisins. Slight bitterness from the (toasted) wood, but more in a refill cask style. Hints of burnt caramel. Elegant again. The fruits, apricots, dried pineapple, try to add some acidity to the sweetness but they don’t manage to. It’s only a breath of fruity acidity, not enough apricots to do that. My tongue proves to me that the finish is drying and probably quite woody, but the sweetness coats it all and hides this very well. Two layers, interesting. The finish is exactly like the body, a seamless transition.

Today this Whisky is quite expensive. I love it but it somehow lacks some complexity to warrant its price. Although there in nothing wrong in this case with 43% ABV, I would have like this slightly higher in alcohol, it would make the woody part stand out a bit better, and I hope it would balance out the sweetness a bit. As I said before, good balance and none of the markers I mentioned are overpowering.

Points: 87

Thanks Stan for the Sample!

Caol Ila 21yo 1981/2002 (58.2%, Signatory Vintage, Cask #467, 361 bottles)

Ahhh, a dumpy Signatory Vintage bottle, nice! Maybe not thát long ago that this was bottled, but an oldy in today’s market nevertheless. This is Whisky I grew up with. Can you imagine, shops full of bottles like this. Today a fairly rare site. I couldn’t find a picture though of the reviewed bottle (cask #467). Pictured here is a similar bottle drawn from cask #470. The right bottle should look similar, maybe the box had a different colour.

Caol Ila 22yo 1981/2004 (59.0%, Signatory Vintage, Cask #470, 281 bottles)Color: Light gold.

Nose: Nice fatty old peat. Toned down, laid back and elegant. Quite light. Notes of fern and dry grass. This doesn’t leap out of the glass as your regular Sauvignon Blanc. One to savor right from the start though. Typical Caol Ila coffee I always tend to smell in late 70’s early 80’s Caol Ila distillates. No heavy peat, no heavy smoke. Quite an a-typical Islay Whisky.

Taste: Sweet, herbal and grassy. Short fresh attack, clean at first but not for long. After a few seconds a wave of licorice root and primarily loads of ashes. Crushed beetle. Not so much peaty yet. Extremely warming. This is what you want in your hip flask standing on the beach in a storm. (Apart from a young and feisty Islay Whisky that is).

For a 1981 Caol Ila it ís lacking a bit of complexity. I know examples which had some more fatty and funky peat in them. Good but not as good as Caol Ila from these days can be.

Points: 85

Thanks go out to my mate André for providing this sample.

Glentauchers 8yo 2005/2013 (46%, Dewar Rattray, For the Specialist’s Choice The Netherlands, Sherry Puncheon #900389, 403 bottles)

We are now in the middle of the rise of NAS Whiskies and very soon most Whiskies in our regular shops will have a names instead of a number or a vintage even. Whiskies that do have an age statement will be confined to airports and other travel retail outlets. But that’s only one of a few possible futures. What will happen to the Independent bottlers? Will they have a way to survive. Today many of them are capable of releasing pretty good Whiskies, although mediocrity is creeping into their products as well. How long will casks of Whisky be available to them? Are we going to see only affordable yet young Whisky from them as we already see with NAS Whiskies from the distilleries themselves. After the Ledaig I reviewed last, here we have another young Whisky coming from a Sherry cask. Glentauchers this time. Earlier I reviewed an older Glentauchers. also from a Sherry cask that was pretty good to say the least…

Glentauchers 8yo 2005/2013 (46%, Dewar Rattray, For the Specialist's Choice The Netherlands, Sherry Puncheon #900389, 403 bottles)Color: Full gold.

Nose: Sherried, creamy and fresh. Herbal and woody. Nice creamy oak, yes creamy oak. Fruity candy. Very likeable. Powdered. Quite a lot of vanilla. It really smells like a Sherry cask made with American oak.

Taste: Creamy and funky Sherry. Real acidic fruitiness right from the start. The creaminess and fruitiness don’t necessarily mix together well, especially when a paper-like note appears. In time that strange mixture passes and reveals more sweetness with the vanilla coming back here too. Paper and cardboard make up the finish, but not by itself. Notes from wood, mocha, Cappuchino, cigar box and creamy vanilla are also here to stay but mainly the fruity acidity returns with a vengeance. Whisky candy. Do you know those fruity gello’s in dark chocolate. That kind of fruity acidity contrasted by sweet dark chocolate. Accept this and you’ll be ok. Interesting stuff.

Although this has some flaws, it is also highly drinkable. This may not fetch the highest score, but it most certainly is nice to drink. Don’t analyze this to death, just grab it for the fun of it. Make it your daily drinker. I often rant a bit about reducing Whiskies, because sometimes the reduction makes the Whisky thin and watery. This time however I will hold my tongue, since I don’t feel reduction hurt the final product. It is good like this. I’ll stop now and pour myself another dram.

Points: 84

Ledaig 6yo 2004/2011 (46%, Murray McDavid, Heavily Peated, Sherry Cask, 1.500 bottles)

Today we’ll have a look at another Ledaig, The peated Whisky made at Tobermory on the Island of Mull. Tobermory and/or Ledaig once had a bit of a shabby reputation for not being very consistent in quality, but the tide seems to be turned. Lots of very nice Ledaigs are turning up left and right, although the other young one I reviewed earlier wasn’t the best one around. However, quality today is good and even at a young age. This Sherried Ledaig is only 6 years old and looking good. The mere fact that Murray McDavid didn’t turn this into a Whisky with some kind of finish is saying something doesn’t it?

Ledaig 6yo 2004/2011 (46%, Murray McDavid, Heavily Peated, Sherry Cask, 1.500 bottles)Color: Full gold, almost orange.

Nose: Fatty peat and ashes. Nice note of cask toast and dirty Sherry. Smoked kippers. Tarry with hints of black fruit. Smoky and even a bit salty. Reminds me of good peated stuff from a while back, and in those days the peated Whiskies weren’t that old too. If I had smelled this blind I would have thought this was from Longrow, Laphroaig or Kilchoman (Isn’t that a kind of big spectrum?). Vanilla pudding, with a tiny hint of citrus freshness. Lemon, but also a hint of the aroma of sweet strawberries. Excellent nose.

Taste: Toast again, ashes again, but different from what I expected. First of all it is immediately clear that this isn’t in the taste a “heavy” as the nose was. The ghost of reduction? More wood here and much simpler than the nose. The wood gave off a bitter edge which helps the character of the Whisky along, but makes it a Whisky you’ll have to work with. In the finish, the Whisky falls apart. Thin, watery and especially the acidity stays, with the ashes, some almond and yes, the fatty peat, earthy clay and smoky bite.

Not bad, but something isn’t quite right here. Hard to tell, but maybe these weren’t the best Sherry casks around. The peated spirit itself tasted good, but not everything went well with the interaction with the wood. Maybe the Whisky also suffered here by the reduction to 46% ABV. We’ll never know, but I’m guessing this was a bit better at cask strength. Not bad, but could have been better is my obvious conclusion.

Points: 83

Michel Couvreur Special Vatting (45%, 3 Distinct Single Malt Barrels aged over 10 years, L005)

Michel Couvreur CaveMichel still had his house in Bouze-les-Beaune and returned there in 1978. Behind the house he dug out a new cellar in the hillside, making it a center for importing good Sherry casks from spain (to the south of where he was), and Whisky (from the north). One of his cellars is pretty humid, with natural water running down the walls, I’m not even mentioning here what grows on the walls! The first cellar that lies between the house and the rest of the underground complex is drier and is where all the casks are stored (see picture above). Visiting there some time ago, I saw some nice casks of Sherried 1981 Brora (which I got to taste) and a 1969 and some seventies Springbank. If Michel thought the Whisky had matured enough, he transferred the Whisky to large glass bottles and stored them in dark passageways. On August 17, 2013 Michel left for the big distillery in the sky at the age of 85 years.

Michel Couvreur Special VattingColor: Murky orange brown.

Nose: Beautiful full Sherried nose, like the best of them all: old Macallan. Creamy and fruity. Vanilla and Ice-cream. All the best from Sherry but without its harshness, and without its sulphur. Full and elegant Sherry aroma, but very light. It doesn’t leap out of the glass at you. Mocha and soft and squishy wet wood. Fruity candy again. Licorice and a green and leafy note. Honey and young creamy Edam cheese.

Taste: Initially sweet Sherry, but eventually drier than expected. Quite some heavy Sherry aroma. A bit like one of the best A’bunadh’s with some water. Given some time the sweetness develops into a honeyed sweetness. Although Michel is never connected to much with Oloroso, it does have a lot of traits from Oloroso casked Whisky, like A’bunadh. Sweet and dry at the same time. Quite some oak hides behind the Sherry. The oak comes through and is easily recognizable by the bitterness it gives off, making the Sherry-ness transparent. A sort of hoppy bitterness with ashes. Funky! (But not funky Sherry). Tastewise a bit unbalanced.

This one I would have liked to try at an ever higher strength. For me this example smells better than it actually tastes. It has a kind of bitterness that lasts into the finish, I’m not so keen about. Lovely nose though. A good Whisky but I liked the previous example a little better.

Points: 82

Michel Couvreur Malt Whisky (43%, Distilled and aged over 12 years in Scotland, L002)

Michel CouvreurMichel Couvreur was born in Belgium. He came to Burgundy in 1951 to market wine, but also to make wine. He did that untill 1978. Through all of his life, Michel had a passion for production methods, and not only for Wines. Michel travelled to England and Scotland for the Wine trade and there came in contact with Whisky. He moved first to England in 1956 (in the same year he acquired the cellars of Molet) and subsequently moved to Scotland in 1964. In 1971 he left again and moved his Wine trade to Canada (untill 1978). In Scotland (in 1986 at Edradour) he studied the production methods for Whisky, amongst others, focussing on different kinds of Barley and forging a love for Sherry casks that once held Pedro Ximénez and Palomino Fino. Michel claimed that 90% of the quality of the end-product comes from the cask used, and a mere 10% by the distillate itself. Here we’ll try an example of one of Michels Whiskies. Sourced from Scotland, peated, reduced with imported water from Scotland, and matured in good Sherry Casks.

Michel Couvreur Malt WhiskyColor: Copper orange glow. Unfiltered.

Nose: Malty and Sherried. Sweet and fruity. Small hints of cask toast and oak. (this also comes from the peated barley). Definite vanilla. A very quiet malt. Dusty and powdery, again a bit sweetish with fruity Sherry. Candied and very likeable. Fresh fruity and no sulphur. Tawny Port. Smelling this it almost seems like modern Sherry cask are somehow fake (a part is “treated”, so in fact they are).

Taste: Sweet fruity and Sherried. Vanilla and the sweetness is replaced with a prickly infused smoke and subsequently, a slightly acidic fruity note replaces that. All the time a slightly oaky backbone is omnipresent as some sort of background noise. In the finish this noise turns into a slight bitter edge combined with nice blackcurrant candy. This is peated, but probably not a lot, since this is no way a world domination by Dr. Peat. Good balance between the smoky prickly part and the sweet Sherry.

Don’t be fooled by the peat mentioned on the label. Although present, it acts more like a vessel for delivering some prickly smoke than a peaty flavour itself. This is a bottling that is about (good) Sherry casks. Take your time and learn. This may not be the worlds most complex malt, but all the way, you know this was well made.  These bottlings came out in small batches. The bottle I tasted had L005 on the label and looks ever so slightly different from the one pictured above. This is a speciality and worth picking up. Highly drinkable and very nice. Should still be available and affordable.

Points: 83