Some Laphroaig, for my son


May 18, 2024

Angus's Corner
From our correspondent and
skilled taster Angus MacRaild in Scotland

Some Laphroaig,
for my son

Last week we welcomed our son, Arthur MacRaild, into the world and our family. If it's ok with you, we'll mark the occasion by indulging in a few celebratory notes from my favourite distillery: Laphroaig.

Laphroaig comes in for quite a bit of flak these days, and there's much about what the current owners do with it that I'm not too sure about to be honest, but the core distillate remains excellent. Most importantly the standard 10 year old is still a whisky which I find both pleasurable and evocative to drink in a pub or social setting.
Laphroaig was also my Dad's favourite dram, and the whisky that put the hook in me for whisky enthusiasm more broadly. I have no idea whether my kids, Molly and Arthur, will give two figs about whisky as they grow up, but as a very lucky and very happy dad, I'm hopeful and thrilled to toast their future with my favourite malt.

Biberon

First up is a what I consider a pretty provocative official bottling. On the rear label it says:

"Our first Elements edition explores experimentation with mashing and fermentation styles to reveal an unexpected new dimension to our signature style… Using two different types of wort and mashing in old and new style tuns, Elements 1.0 finely tunes the process to create a non-chill filtered, 100% Islay malt with greater tropical fruit notes, without losing any of signature phenolic and maritime peatiness."

This is quite fascinating to me as I have spent pretty much the entirety of my short whisky career making noise about fermentation as an agent of character in Scotch Whisky.

We have also, more broadly as malt enthusiasts, been talking about this faded - or 'missing' - tropical fruit character in Islay single malts, for years now. Indeed, tropical fruits are arguably most famously associated with Bowmore and Laphroaig makes from the 1960s and 1950s; if you want to pinpoint exotic fruits and their most vivid manifestations in Scotch whisky, it's hard not to invoke these distilleries and decades.

Exotic

So, to see this distillery's official owners adopting this language explicitly and associating it in the same sentence as something as geeky as mashing and fermentation is pretty revealing in my view. This isn't something that would have happened 10-15 years ago. It makes me wonder whether the cumulative weight of discussion in our culture about the phenomena of older style production characteristics and flavour profiles is beginning to be noticed, and perhaps even responded to, in these companies?

But, let's check the whisky itself and see if it isn't just marketing doublespeak…

Laphroaig Elements 1.0 (58.6%, OB, 2023)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: I find it quite obviously 'Laphroaig' but in a more modern way than an old style way. It's more about the medicines, TCP, iodine and seashore characteristics. I would not say this is in the same arena as the tropical fruit bombs of the 1960s and 1970s. Having said that I do love the rather intricate mix of bandages and medicines, increasingly complicated coastal, mineral and seashore qualities and rather brusque, punchy salinity. It's a very good Laphroaig with a clear voice! With water: very much on seawater, sandalwood, mineral salts, brine and anchovy paste. Perhaps some pretty sharp citrus fruits too.

Mouth: reminds me of a good older batch of the Cask Strength 10yo without too much intense wood influence. Wet rocks, kelp, hessian, raw iodine, oyster sauce and a wee glimmer of pink grapefruit. Very classical and classy in other words, close to the familiar modern house style I would say. Getting extremely umami, coastal and salty, with a superbly brittle and sharp peat smoke beneath everything. With water: becomes thicker, broader and more to do with camphor, tar, mineral oils, hessian and thicker peat smoke notes, although still lots of iodine and impressions of kelp and kippers. Extremely classical Laphroaig really. Finish: long, peppery, warming, tarry and peaty! Comments: I find this really excellent, but I also don't think it demonstrates what it claims to - I don't find it a particularly fruity whisky I have to say. To me this is an excellent modern Laphroaig that foregrounds the distillate and distillery character without any overt or vulgar wood that cloys or gets in the way of things. I don't detect overt tropical fruits, and perhaps that says something about the distinction between my own impressions - and expectations - of fruity Laphroaig, and those of the owners/producers. What it really leaves me with is the desire to talk to the people responsible for this whisky and ask them their own views on it and about their original motivations and methods. As it stands, I think it's a very good modern Laphroaig that is better than quite a few of the recent 10yo cask strength batches in my view; even if there's a lingering frustration that it's also another NAS bottling that reveals little about its inherent DNA or construction.
SGP: 467 - 88 points.

Laphroaig 10 yo (43%, OB, Spirit import, 70cl, early 1990s)
This shouldn't take too long, these batches are 'well kent'… Colour: gold. Nose: gorgeous, creamy, layered peat smoke that has a tangible fatness and feeling of texture about it. Underneath that those familiar things like dried mango, pink grapefruit, smoked and herbal teas and wee glimmers of passion fruit and kumquat. Pure class! Mouth: very focussed on tea, that is smoked teas like Lapsing Souchong, but also green tea with lemon, exotic fruit teas and herbal teas. I wonder where this impression comes from? There's also beach foam, hessian cloth, aniseed and anchovy paste. Very savoury and showing a beautifully, dry and complex peat smoke flavour. Finish: long, peat, elegantly drying, herbal and with more dried exotic fruits throughout. Comments: all present and correct! What witchcraft was afoot in these days?
SGP: 566 - 91 points.

Laphroaig 10 yo (43%, OB, 1 litre, early 1990s)
This one should take even less time, in theory… Colour: gold. Nose: same profile, but perhaps even fruitier! Slightly less of this creamy and fat impression, and more on brightness, sharp fruits, tropical notes, wee crisp peat smoke and crushed seashell impressions. Love it! Mouth: wonderful 'total engagement', which is to say a profile that satisfies every craving: salty, fruity, sweet, smoky and also texturally impressive. In short: dried exotic fruits, saline coastal freshness, rich peat smoke and many subtle umami complexities that involve green olive, capers in brine, anchovy paste, iodine, camphor and seawater. In truth, we could probably have cut and paste the above note for the Spirit Import 10 yo, but of course that would be outrageous cheating! And it would have deprived us of tasting this one too. Finish: even longer, but notably saltier and drier, salt cured fish, brine, bone-dry peat smoke, pink sea salt and grapefruit acidity. Comments: such deadly whiskies these old Laphroaigs, they should probably be illegal.
SGP: 566 - 92 points.

Laphroaig 27 yo (51.2%, Elixir Distillers 'Director's Special', 1st fill barrel, 210 bottles, 2024)
Colour: deep orangey gold. Nose: we aren't too far away from the old 10 in many regards. Lots of tangerine, grapefruit and lemon, a feeling of smoked citrus fruits, crystallised citrus peels, smoked mead, smoked olive oil, lots of lovely things that have been gentle smoked with peat essentially. Evolves with more focus on medicinal embrocations, bandages, kiln smoke, Maggi seasoning, hessian cloth and a background oak spiciness. With water: sharper, more coastal, more mine ral and also a little more sooty with hints of charcoal alongside beach pebbles. rock pools and dried seaweed. Mouth: you do feel the age here with a little assertiveness from the oak, but the peat holds out rather remarkably with some beautiful peppery and salty notes, lots of familiar tarry flavours, dry phenolics, aniseed and salted liquorice. Add to that some smoked beers, more hessian and tarred rope. With water: excellent! Claws back this assertive salty side, with some further notes of juniper, tea tree oil and camphor. A few distant notes of dried exotic fruits such as mango and pineapple too. Those various teas are all back as well. Finish: long, nicely salty and drying with soy sauce, tar, pickled tarragon and iodine. Comments: totally excellent mature Laphroaig that shows its age in a very attractive fashion. Only these ever so slight hints of oak spiciness will prevent me going higher.
SGP: 466 - 90 points.

Islay 30 yo 1991/2022 (51.4%, Signatory Vintage for Wu Dram Clan '3rd Anniversary Collection', cask #2674, bourbon barrel, 237 bottles)
Ah yes, cask #2674, I have strong recollections of being in the Signatory Warehouses and rejecting this cask myself… ;) Xxx Colour: straw. Nose: these batches are just unbeatable. What I love is that they nose younger than 30yo, while still managing to display a lot of the kind of deep complexity that peated whisky can only accrue with age. So, in other words, super fresh and super complex! Which in this case is many coastal notes of pebbles, rock pools and seaweed, alongside bandages, squid ink, soy sauce, eucalyptus oil and a gorgeous, layered peat smoke. There's also some very familiar Laphroaig notes of TCP and iodine coming through loud and clear. A little sharp citrus too. With water: thick, crystalline peat smoke. Kiln air, kippers drizzled with lemon juice and shellfish broth. Also still powerfully medicinal. Mouth: superbly briny, salty, sharp and precise! Hugely coastal, hyper fresh and subdividing into dry peat smoke, wood ashes, crushed seashells, tar, black olives in brine and anchovy paste. Incredible salty, savoury profile! With water: the same powerful combination of saltiness, peat smoke, citrus and medicine, but now gathers fatness, texture and oiliness in the mouth. An impression of smoked olive oil cut with pickling brine. You could probably make some kind of dizzyingly silly dirty martini with this whisky. Finish: very long, extremely salty, medicinal, pure and stunningly peaty. Comments: those impatient Germans, this would perhaps have been ready by 40 years old. I am of course kidding. A great selection and probably a bottle to tuck away for 20-30 years of bottle ageing. Stunning old 'Islay single malt' that seems to combine the power and liveliness of a 10yo with the complexity of a 30yo.
SGP: 467 - 92 points.

Laphroaig 10 yo (91.4 US proof, OB, Carlton Import USA, 1960s)
From a bottle recently coughed up out of the USA, apparently with a low fill level… Colour: pale amber. Nose: what to say? An extraordinarily pure and deep aromatic peat profile, how you might imagine a slab of 3000 year old bog, smouldering on a plate would smell. But there's also medicinal roots, dried herbs, ancient liqueurs of various type, crystallised orange rind, bergamot, wintergreen and preserved exotic fruits. I find it very close in profile to the old 14yo OB bottling from the 1950s with this harmonious intertwining of peat, sherry and complicated tertiary notes. Mouth: it has probably softened somewhat with the lower fill level in this bottle, but the power and charisma of the peat flavour is still astonishing. Deep, broad, rooty, organic, herbal, vegetal, coastal and medical all at the same time. The sort of whisky that rips up and completely re-draws your internal mental assumptions about peat flavour. I also forgot to mention some stunning dried out old honey and honeycomb notes, also hessian, ink, pure tar extracts and this encroaching, utterly stunning saltiness, like peat smoked sea salt! One of these whiskies that leads the way and leaves you scrabbling to keep up… Finish: extremely long and profoundly deep, warm and glowing with old, dry, earthy peat. Comments: the label on this one says 'The richest whisky made' - no marketing double speak there! Slante, Arthur.
SGP: 566 - 95 points.

Big hugs to Mark, Phil and KC!

Check the index of all Laphroaig we've tasted so far