Tag Archives: Laphroaig

Laphroaig Week – Day 5: Laphroaig 16yo 1987/2003 (50%, Douglas Laing, Old Malt Cask, DL REF 814, 276 bottles)

Laphroaig SignThe dark side of the moon. We are now most definitely on the other side of our Laphroaig Week. It started with the highly visible and upfront official bottlings, pivoted around yesterday’s Kintra Laphroaig (sunset Sherry) and now the final stretch home. This final trio starts with this more obscure Whisky, hiding in green glass aswell, but not released by its maker, but sold of for blending purposes, I guess, but rescued from mediocrity by focussing on its single cask traits. Today we’ll be looking at a Laphroaig bottled by Independent bottler Douglas Laing. Douglas Laing started bottling two Laphroaigs under the alias ‘Laudable’ in 2000. Both were 15yo and 1985 distillates. Using the Laphroaig name three further 1985 distillates saw the light of day as 17 year olds. Next up were a large amount of bottles distilled in 1987 and our DL REF 814 is one of them.

By the way, the picture here depicts sister bottling DL REF 745, bottled 4 months later. The reviewed bottle should look similar.

Laphroaig 1987 Douglas LaingColor: Light gold, almost white wine.

Nose: Extremely closed. Quite light and friendly in the nose. Citrus fruits and smoked cold citrus flavored tea, yes Lapsang Souchong comes to mind. Also a promise of sweetness. Not your heavy hitting peat and smoke emitting monster. Nope, nothing like that at all! Very light end vegetal. Pot plants and warm dried out flowerpot dirt. Slightly meaty and quite a buttery smell which occasionally emits a fruity acidic smell. Pear is added to the citrus. Vanilla with a tiny hint of cigarette smoke. Sweaty and even some tropical fruits like pineapple. Didn’t see this coming! Given some air, a slight dab of smoke emerges as well as some peat. It’s almost like the liquid is holding back the aroma’s from emanating. Nice to see how well all these aroma’s fit together.

Taste: Half sweet and slightly buttery again. Lightly smoked almonds. Fruit syrup. Lots and lots of licorice, ashes and a bitterness that seems to come from smoke. Lightly toasted almonds now with hints of lemon. The acidic citrus note is a great counterpart to the smoke, butter and vanilla. The almond taste stays on for a long time. Altogether half-sweet with toffee throughout. Little hint of mocha-coffee and milk chocolate and even some whipped cream enters the fold occasionally. How is that for complexity? No heavy peat nor a nice garden bonfire so get that out of your system before tasting. Warming.

Quite a strange Laphroaig this is. At first hand it’s not very open and invites you to work it out of the glass. In the end it ís willing to show itself and slowly it emerges out of the glass. Forget for a while this is a Laphroaig, just imagine an old Islay Whisky. The beauty here lies in the details, in the frail and brittle aroma’s, in the great balance and nice complexity. Granted not an easy malt, but if you have the right mind-set it will reward you big-time. So very, very different from regular releases and the profile Laphroaig normally is known for.

Points: 88

Laphroaig Week – Day 4: Laphroaig 13yo 1998/2011 (53.4%, Kintra, Refill Sherry Butt #700047, 96 bottles)

Laphroaig SignDay four, a.k.a. the middle, or the pivotal point in a week. We’re halfway through. We started out with three distillery bottlings of Laphroaig. An older 15yo, it’s replacement the 18yo, although not in its latest guise, and yesterday we had a look at a travel retail only bottling from last year: An Cuan Mòr. Up untill now Laphroaig hasn’t failed me yet. Today we’ll venture into more unknown territory. The territory of the independent bottler. Today we’ll have a look at a Laphroaig, Erik Molenaar got into his hands a while back. The market is rapidly changing. In 2011 Erik could get (part of a Sherry Butt) for a reasonable price. Today he probably would still be able to source such a Whisky, but unfortunately only at an unreasonable price. So even when this is from 2011, it can still be considered…well you catch my drift. So without further ado…

Color: Gold.

Nose: Funky Sherry. Has someone just farted over here? My word, lots of the S-element is filling the room. Sulphur that is, and it comes from my glass into which I have not farted, nor has anyone else. Fruity and half sweet underneath “the fart”. Enough with the fart already, will ya? Ok, lets move the Sulphur into the realm of fireworks then. Toasted wood, but also toasted bread. Meaty big aroma.

Taste: Sweet and Sherried. Fruity with loads of ashes. Short shock of fruity acidity. Creamy but with a wave of a bitter sulphury edge. The bitterness also could come from the oak. Nevertheless, the bitterness is also kept in check, so it doesn’t hurt the overall taste. The ashes transform into a sweeter form with and acidic edge, and both do not overpower the palate. The sweetness and acidity show themselves and go under again, like the Loch Ness monster. Warming and full body. Cozy. Nice mix of peat and funky Sherry. Sure, it may be flawed but the whole still (fire)works for me. Hints of black fruits and some smoke late in the finish.

Lots of my Whisky-loving friends don’t like sulphury notes too much. Some seem to be even overly sensitive to the stuff, if not allergic. They can go on and on about it and I sure do understand why. We know from the olden days how Sherried malts should taste like. Some of you know the golden days of The Macallan, old heavily Sherried Longmorns from the sixties and seventies, Glen Grants and Strathisla from the sixties. Fruity, full of aroma’s, with steam and coal, the lot! Today that quality can’t be reached anymore, and I don’t have the room here to discuss why. More modern Sherried malts are prone to have sulphury notes, and it’s up to you, if you can stand that or not. If you can (like I do), this is a big and nice, yet sulphury, Laphroaig.

Points:87

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

Laphroaig ‘Select’ (40%, OB)

Here it is, that last month of the year, again! Unbelievable how quickly time flies when one ages. Not too long untill the next Christmas and soon another new year. Luckily every season has its benefits. Winter is a season that makes peated Whiskies even tastier than they already are. A long time ago, I was introduced to Laphroaig 10yo (export strength, 43%). People were raving about it so I went out to buy myself a bottle. Being used to Bourbons and Scottish Blends, I was quite shocked what a Single Malt Whisky cost. I turned around ran out of the store…

Laphroaig SelectWalking around for a bit (no way I was going to pay that!) However, it was cold and I really wanted that simple green glass bottle with that simple but classy white label. I couldn’t resist and went back in. Then it hit me, the vision of that handy flat 20 cl bottle. Great! That offered me a taste of Laphroaig without losing a lot of hard-earned cash, so I got me a Laphroaig 10yo. Great! The rest, as they say, is history. I liked it so much I was hooked for life.

Much later, in 2014 to be exact, Laphroaig released yet another new bottling and called it ‘Select’ since the Whisky is from “hand selected oak casks for perfect balance and flavour” Well I didn’t know that up untill now Laphroaig picked their casks at random, or let a computer decide. Strange…

Color: Light gold

Nose: Fresh and heavy peat, like from the old days. It does bring back memories. Lots of iodine, and therefore medicinal. Salt, tar and sea spray mixed with some ashes. Distant smoke. Salty and smoked dry kippers. This is how a Laphroaig should smell. Nice!

Taste: What! Sugar water, some more sugar-water. Where is the rest. It takes a while but finally some ashes arrive with some heat. In that heat the peat emerges. Nice peat, but very childish peat, no stout bearded peat, but nice candied peat. Likeable. Where is my love it or hate it Laphroaig, this is a entry-level Laphroaig. Try to gain some new souls Laphroaig. Cold sweet tea with more ashes and a sugary sweet finish to match. Finish is not short. The ashes and peat stay on, but have to fight the sweetness off.

What a Whisky. They made me think with the stunning nose Laphroaig has returned to something that made me love Laphroaig in the first place, but when trying it, it turns out to be Laphroaig candy! Don’t try this after another Laphroaig, because almost any other Laphroaig will blow it out of the water. Try it after a Lowlander and it will be a lot better.

Having said all this, I don’t hate it. It has a stunning nose, and it does have a purpose letting newbies be scared by the nose, but liking the taste. There is something of the old Laphroaig in the taste department too, but it is hidden behind a lot of sweetness, and it does have a decent finish. The label states that this expression had a final maturation in new American oak casks, but I didn’t get the new wood not the vanilla it usually brings. By the way, it tastes a little bit watery. 40% fits the purpose, I mentioned above, but for me it could have been (a lot) higher in ABV, but there are probably other Laphroaigs for that…

Points: 83

Laphroaig 30yo (43%, OB, Circa 2006)

Time for a nice old Laphroaig. The last one being so young, let’s do an oldie (but goldie).

Color: Copper

Nose: Sweet clay with seaweed. Old distinguished peat. Sourness from the oak. Gravy. Old wood. Bonfire and smoke. Grilled sausage. Cold bonfire remnants. (the day after). Distant freshness and sweetness.

Taste: Sweet, slightly warming. mouth-watering and chewy peat. Black and white powder, but not as salty. This has great balance. Late fruit (peach). Although there is peach on the palate it doesn’t have it on the nose. And last but not least, there is wood here, some added spice to complement the rest.

Laphroaig is just great. Just look at a part of their series and compare the 10yo at cask strength, the 15yo and the 30yo. Just beware the oxidation. Don’t keep this bottle open for too long. It will get weaker and ruin the balance, and that would be a shame…

Points: 90

Laphroaig 8yo 2001/2009 (57%, The Ultimate, Hogshead #2927, 324 bottles)

I needed a Laphroaig for my last Por Larrañaga post, and since the weather outside is frightful, and a whisky could be so delightful, let’s review this one properly.

The Ultimate is a Dutch bottler from Amersfoort called Han van Wees. Han handpicked this Hogshead himself (if not his son Maurice probably did). I was at his shop and Han told me personally that this Laphroaig is a must, since it reminded him of “old skool” Laphroaig. Well if this man says something like this to you, who wouldn’t buy it? So let’s see how Laphroaig tasted in the past, and if it was any good then 🙂 (please keep in mind this whisky is from 2001, you know a year we remember like it was last year).

Color: White wine.

Nose: Obviously this has the typical Islay traits. It smells like it will taste sweet. It has nice fat succulent and clean peat. The tar is there too, as well as the ash. Salty and fresh. The smoke or bonfire are very subdued in this. It’s in there but its further along the beach. I know this reads like a lot of Islay whiskies, but hey it’s from there, and we wouldn’t like our Laphroiag to smell as an Aberlour don’t we?  Sniffing this profile as a whole, I notice great balance. Everything is there and nothing overwhelms. It’s not only peat or herring or rubber for that matter. It’s immediately likeable. I like the nose very much. By the way, I know it seems strange to say you smell something sweet or salty since both are tastes and not smells, but just open a jar of sugar or a container with sea salt in it, both have a certain smell.

Taste: Sweet ‘n peat. Liquorice and tar on a rope in seawater. The fresh sea wind carries seaweed. Chewing gum? Lot’s of legs in the glass. It feels classic, but is that because of what Han said? The finish is ever so slightly bitter and ashy and slightly less balanced and less sweet than the top and the middle notes. That’s probably because of its youth.

Yeah! Laphroaig! This is stunning quality at 8 years old. Can you believe I only paid 40 Euro’s for this? That’s getting a lot for your money. It’s a bang-for-your-buck, just like the Laphroaig 10yo cask strength versions of yesteryear (green and red stripe versions). Last but not least, this whisky is uncolored and unchillfiltered.

Points: 88

The picture of the bottle is for a 6yo refill butt version, the reviewed whisky is lighter in color. Label is identical, just with some differences in the small print, you can’t read anyway.