Aultmore 1989, 14 yo, 58.6% – SMWS (73.9, A Dairy Dram)

Posted on 19 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

When I recently started to give away some books I had racked up in the attic and I no longer wanted or needed, a couple whisky buddies were interested in some. They, as whisky buddies do, offered a sample in return (they could’ve gotten them for free, but they’re a nice bunch).

This sample was one of them and I was happy to have it. I don’t review much Aultmore, and this is an oldie at that. Bottled over a decade ago from an era when a sherry cask was really a sherry cask, at significant strength. Sounds like a good plan to try it right away!

Aultmore is a distillery that’s not on my radar. I’ve tried a few over the years and none of them were very good, with a real low being hit with our club bottling a couple of years ago. I really didn’t like that one and I didn’t buy it. Let’s see where this one lands.

Sniff:
A huge hit of leather at the beginning, with old bananas, and sherry. It’s lightly spicy with oak and mint. Quite sharp and some peppery heat. Dried plums, thick sherry and peaches too.

Sip:
The palate has old overripe fruit like those old bananas on the nose. Oak, and dried peach, apricot and plums. Leather, lots and lots of wood. It’s heavy and cloying, and slightly spicy. Very sharp and some other wood spices too.

Swallow:
The finish has leather again and is also a tad mineral like, with some iron, oak, lots of sherry. Quite beefy.

This is a massive dram. It seems like in general the SMWS knows what it’s doing with a lot of highlights and only some deceptions. This one falls in the first category. The sherry is huge but not overpowering the whisky and it’s sharp enough to keep you slightly on edge.

Even for a dram at almost 60% it’s very sharp and hot. There’s quite some hot spiciness with pepper and some other things going on, which combines very well with the dried fruits, sherry and oak. In short, I love this whisky. Not a ’90-pointer’, but surely up in the eighties.

Aultmore 1989, 14 yo, 58.6%, SMWS, 73.9, A Dairy Dram. According to Whiskybase it’s worth about € 75 now.

Thanks to Rowald for the sample!

Posted in Aultmore | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Arran 8yo, 2006-2014, 56.6%, Peated – OB for The Nectar

Posted on 18 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Arran is on a roll the last year or two, with many private cask releases and also quite a few releases for themselves. Since about five years or so they’ve also got a peated whisky on the market, called Arran Machrie Moor. I’ve once reviewed their first edition and wasn’t too charmed by it.

They’re also releasing the peated stuff as a private release every now and then. I believe there was a peated Arran for The Whisky Fair in Limburg last year, and there’s this one for the Belgian market. Maybe there’s more, but let’s start here.

Sniff:
On the nose it start off as the regular bourbon cask matured Arran with a tad more vanilla than usual, but the same huge layer of yellow fruits. Apples, pineapples, some pear. It’s peat is there but very lightly. If I hadn’t known it was peated, I might have overlooked it. There is a scent of plants that gets heavier with a couple minutes in the glass, while the vanilla gets less. Some straw too.

Sip:
The palate is a tad less fruity than the nose, but it also builds a bit. The plant scent translates into a plant flavor with heather and straw. Pineapple again, and oak. Here the smoke is still light but slightly more detectable than on the nose. As said, the fruit builds a bit to higher intensity.

Swallow:
The finish suddenly has more vanilla and a flavor of custard. Some garden herbs too, like thyme. The straw is here too but the fruits dissipate quickly. It’s long and lightly smoky.

At first, when I was nosing it I was a bit disappointed because the peat was too light to make a real impact, but the fruits were lovely again. I really love the fruitiness of this whisky, but since it’s present in all the bourbon casks I’ve tasted recently, I don’t feel the need to start buying loads of them.

The smoke gains a bit in intensity towards the finish, which is a good thing. I still think it should have been slightly more prominent to really make a difference. The herbal flavors in the finish work really well with the fruit that was already there. Maybe thyme and pineapple is a thing? I might try it on the barbecue this summer!

Arran 8yo, 2006-2014, 56.6%, Peated, #2006/006, OB for The Nectar. Available for € 62 in Belgium

Posted in Arran | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Balvenie Tun 1509, batch 1, 47.1%

Posted on 15 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Balvenie got a lot of high marks with their Tun 1401 series over the last couple of years. The Tun 1858 was a release for Taiwan that Sam Simmons let us taste at Maltstock some 4 years ago, that was an awesome dram as well. I preferred that one to the 1401s, to be honest.

Then, last year they announced Tun 1509. This follows the 1401 series and is made of a larger parcel of casks and is a world wide release instead of a ‘regional’ one like the Tun 1401 batches.

Strangely, where the Tun 1401 sold out instantly, the Tun 1509 series has been available for a while and still is, at more or less the same price as upon release. Admittedly, it’s not a cheap dram but neither were the later batches of Tun 1401. Currently it’s available for a tad over € 300, which places it nicely out of my league.

Luckily, Rob ‘De Whiskykoning‘ loved it so much he put it in his best-of-2014 tasting which he did one final time last week. Since I was driving to and from the tasting he was kind enough to give me a couple of sample bottles so I could take a scrap of some of the drams home with me. Obviously, I brought this one as well as Glengoyne 25 and Lagavulin 12 CS (the 2013 release). Reviews of those two drams will follow shortly.

Tun 1509 batch one is made of 42 different casks, of which 35 are bourbon barrels and the remainder is 7 European oak sherry butts. This makes this whisky slightly less sherried than Tun 1401 which usually sat closer to a 50/50 ratio of bourbon vs. sherry oak.

Sniff:
On the nose the sherry influence is rather clear with hints of dry sherry and spices. It’s coming off a lot stronger than I expected with this being 47.1%. There’s banana and other fruits, with sweet spiced cake, honey and some leather. A very old fashioned nose on this whisky!

Sip:
The palate is rich with lots of honey and spiced cake, even something we call ‘ontbijtkoek’. There’s ginger and dry sherry, oak and orange.

Swallow:
The finish is rich again with lots of oak and dry flavors. Lots of flavor which mostly is good, dry, sherry with fruit (mostly orange). Surprisingly, the finish isn’t very long.

While I really enjoyed Tun 1401’s batches, and I adored Tun 1858, I think this is my favorite one so far. Yesterday I finished the last centiliter of the dram I saved and I really, really loved it again. The depth and complexity of this whisky is huge.

What I like about it is that it’s true to Balvenie’s honey and orange profile, and has the typical flavors of good oak too. Added to that is a layer of strong flavors that complement the whisky very well and give it a little bit more punch, and depth.

I think the general consensus is that the 1401s were better, but I think I disagree. That happens quite a bit with my, as it seems, weird profile. I’m fine with that. I’m also considering how I can scrape enough money together to buy this, and how to explain that decisions to my beloved wife.

Balvenie Tun 1509, batch 1, 47.1% is still available in quite a few shops and prices vary from € 300 to € 840 (!!!). Check Whiskybase for prices.

Posted in Balvenie | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Glen Moray 25, 1987, Port Cask Finish, 43%

Posted on 14 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

This Glen Moray from the ‘rare vintage collection’ was all the rage last year. It was suddenly available everywhere, and the distillery didn’t put all that much in marketing of it. Nonetheless it seems to be on everyone’s radar all of a sudden.

I tried it last February at the Hielander Whisky Festival, again from a sample sent to me by the guy who let me try it there and again last Friday at a whisky tasting at Whiskykoning. So by now I should have a review ready, right?

The first time I tried it it was about halfway through the festival, which means I had already had a couple of drams, mostly at cask strength so the 43% Glen Moray was a bit ill timed. Still, I found it gentle and tasty, with a port influence that didn’t overpower the whisky.

I went to Glen Moray a couple of years back but we only stopped there for a walk around the premises and no tour, plus a visit to the distillery shop at which they had some sent back bottles of the 30 year old which were discounted from £ 180 to £ 70. Seventy quid for the official thirty year old whisky. Now THAT was a deal. Of course, I still have to open it.

Anyway, the distillery is lovely and the current owners are trying to get a more significant market share with it, which has never happened before since it always was blending fodder.

Just one question. What is a rare vintage? A vintage is just a year, right? Then 1987 is more rare than, say, 1988 in Elgin? Weird.

Sniff:
At 43% I expected a very gentle whisky but it has a bit more punch than that. It’s slightly musty with old wood, and some earthy scents. Red fruits, tea, malt and some tropical fruit. Mango, papaya and pineapple.

Sip:
The palate has a LOT of oak and a lot of fruit, both tropical and red fruits. Spicy with a hint of pepper and hints of port.

Swallow:
The finish is quite short and therefore slightly harder to pin down. It’s not packing a lot of flavor but has that slightly spicy pepper flavor again, but the fruit is toned down.

This is a whisky with two faces. It’s dangerously drinkable and I can imagine running through a bottle of this in no time. When just ‘drinking’ it instead of tasting it, it’s a gorgeous dram that goes down easily. When assessing it, like I did now, it’s a tad more interesting, but also slightly weird.

The fruitiness you generally get from Port is not really there. You get some red fruits but I was mostly surprised by the tropical fruits. The oak is huge but that’s to be expected if this was a fresh port cask, which is to be expected.

All in all, this is a lovely dram. It ticks the boxes you want ticked, but for some reason I expect this to be drank more like a € 50 bottle since it’s so easily drinkable. If you can show restraint and sit down to properly enjoy a whisky like this, it’s highly recommended.

Glen Moray 25, 1987 vintage, Port Cask Finish, 43%. Available almost everywhere, at Whiskykoning it’ll set you back € 195. It’s about the same price in the UK

Thanks to Dennis for the sample, and to Rob Stevens to have it in the tasting.

Posted in Glen Moray | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jim Beam Honey, 35%

Posted on 13 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

A sample of this has been sitting in my cupboard for, I think, a few years now. I got it from BG, a whisky buddy who’s a huge Jim Beam fan and obviously had this on his shelf.

Technically, I don’t mind whiskey liqueurs all that much. It’s okay for them to be there, but it’s just not my cup of tea. I tried the Jack Daniel’s one a couple of years ago. Twice. Once from a Styrofoam or paper cup in a motel, and once properly after Hans Offringa had a problem with the setting of the first review (he was right). That one’s nice but won’t make me buy a lot of whiskey liqueurs.

This one then. Honeyed whiskey liqueurs have been up and coming in the US for a while now. Almost every major brand has one with Jim Beam also having all kinds of different liqueurs out there (Red Stag, Maple) and I wouldn’t be surprised if more is on the horizon. It’s a growing market for some reason.

In short, I don’t really understand the appeal of these liqueurs. Mostly because there are vast amounts of liqueurs available which makes me not really see the added value of each brand producing a honey one as well. As far as I know they aim these drinks at the cocktail market, but from a cocktail perspective I’d rather mix bourbon and honey myself.

Sniff:
The bourbon is present but very, very light with the honey being hugely powerful on the nose. Not overpowering, but powerful. Some corn sweetness, cinnamon and the scent of warm sponge cake.

Sip:
The palate is a lot sweeter and more sugary than the nose made me expect. Sugar coated peanuts, lots and lots of honey and almost no wood or spirit flavors.

Swallow:
The finish has a bit of a drying thing going on which gives it a bit more character than the palate.

I’m not the biggest fan of whiskey liqueurs or liqueurs in general, so this might be a bit of a noob review (I do love Zuidam’s Orange liqueur though). I think I preferred Jack Daniel’s version of the honey liqueur since that had a bit more whiskey character. I actually rated that quite highly even though I was very negative at first (from the Styrofoam cup).

This one is just a bit too heavy on the honey side which overpowers the palate to a large extent. The nose and finish aren’t bad, but maybe a tad simple. It’s the palate that ruins it for me.

Luckily, you can easily try for yourself since this stuff isn’t expensive at all. At De Whiskykoning you can get a bottle for € 21, in the UK it’ll set you back some £ 20.

Jim Beam Honey, 35%

Thanks to BG for the sample.

Posted in - American Whiskey, - Other Spirits, Jim Beam | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Another iteration of an Usquebaugh Regional Tasting

Posted on 10 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Every once in a while we do a regional tasting for Usquebaugh Society members. Today was another one themed ‘patience’. That boiled down to mostly bottles from a couple of years ago. In some cases that ‘couple’ is an understatement.

Short to say, it was a good afternoon. As is sort of custom by now on this blog, I post only pictures with a short comment. At a tasting with these guys, I’m not making notes. It’s just too much fun to dive into that wee notebook.

A mediocre start. Very light on the palate, no finish

A mediocre start. Very light on the palate, no finish

Surprisingly spicy and even salty. My bottle, I'm happy with it.

Surprisingly spicy and even salty. My bottle, I’m happy with it.

Tom searching for the Whiskybase rating and price. Nobody knew why...

Tom searching for the Whiskybase rating and price. Nobody knew why…

Abbey Whisky's Bunna. Very surprising

Abbey Whisky’s Bunna. Very surprising

A very good, old fashioned Laphroaig

A very good, old fashioned Laphroaig

Also surprising. It's been ages since I had this. Pretty good.

Also surprising. It’s been ages since I had this. Pretty good.

A weird port cask. No port-like notes, more Cognac-y

A weird port cask. No port-like notes, more Cognac-y

Yes!

Yes!

Yes! But very atypical.

Yes! But very atypical.

Peaty, but quite in line with the unpeated range

Peaty, but quite in line with the unpeated range

Showing off.

Showing off.

After this the party continued when everybody popped another bottle on the table, but I left. A tad early it seems, since some white wine from 1947 popped up on the table for dinner.

Already looking forward to the next one!

Posted in Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Clynelish, Glenfarclas, Glenfiddich, Highland Park, Laphroaig, Scapa, Springbank | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

J.D. William’s Whisky Bar

Posted on 8 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

Somehow, Amsterdam is pretty dry when whisky is regarded. Admitted, there are two festivals and a bar with more than 1800 whiskies open, according to their website. There also is a whisky shop quite a ways out of the city center.

But that’s it. One bar. One shop. Until recently. A couple of months ago a new whisky bar opened in Amsterdam called J.D. William’s Whisky Bar.

Who?

The first logical question, of course, is to ask who the heck is J.D. William? I don’t have a clue. The website doesn’t inform us about that either. I guess it’s a fictional name which just happens to sound American enough to use. Like Jack Daniel, Elmer T. Lee, George T. Stagg, and about a 100 more bourbon brands.

The next question, and the more important one is: Is the bar any good? Yes. Yes it is. They don’t have 1800 different whiskies open, thank God*. There are some 200 open bottles, and there’s a list of about 10-15 craft beers from all over the place (NL, IT, UK, USA, BE to name a few). Having a limited number of options is good for me since I find it hard to choose, plus I want a fresh tasting bottle.

Also, you can eat at J.D. William’s. I went there with colleagues on a Tuesday which is taco night. I found this a surprising choice of theme in a whisky bar, but the tacos were great. You can choose from three different ones (beef, chicken and falafel), and after tasting through that entire menu, I decided I liked the beef best and ordered another one.

Pricing

With dinner we had some beers, and after we decided to switch to the hard likker. This is where we get to the awkward bit for every whisky bar: pricing. I’ve had some bad experiences with this in The Netherlands, where bottles get inflated hugely to the point where I once had to pay € 7 for 2cl of Lagavulin 16, at a time a bottle only cost me 40 bucks. 7 (price) x 35 (amount of glasses poured) = € 245. Over six times the value of the bottle for average Joe. The bar could buy cheaper.

At J.D. William’s this happens too, but only on rarer bottles. Lagavulin 16 was 9 euros, but that was 4 cl. Lagavulin 12 Cask Strength was 10 euros. Contrary to the rather affordable Lagavuling 12 CS were some indie bottlings of which a bottle sit at the same price point per bottle but those were priced at about € 20.

So, pricing is generally acceptable, if you pay attention to the menu and not order off the shelf. A lot of prices are very okay, but some are ridiculous. Somehow a Bruichladdich Islay Barley was more than twice as expensive as other whiskies at the same retail value.

All in all, I found this to be cleverly done. They didn’t only pay attention to the value of a dram, but also to the perceived value of it, and the rarer the bottle, the higher the price. This is clever because those bottles are the ones to sit around longest and by doing this, you at least get your money back before the go flat.

The bar

Then the atmosphere. It’s great. It’s modern without being too ‘hipster’. It’s fitting for a whisky bar and for Amsterdam. I think this too is cleverly done.

The thing that bothered me most is that halfway through our dinner they wiped down the bar with really smelly cleaning spray. We were having tacos at the time so it wasn’t too bad but if my € 10 dram suddenly was overpowered by chloride and lime I’d be pissed.

By the time the evening with my co-workers was over I had had:

  • Anderson Valley Boont Amber
  • Punk IPA
  • Rogue Dead Guy Ale
  • Wild Turkey 101
  • Tomatin 18
  • Elijah Craig 12

Concluding: Highly recommended and I’m really happy with this addition to the Amsterdam ‘quality booze scene’.

J.D. Williams’ Whisky Bar is located in Amsterdam’s city center at Prinsenstraat 5, about a 5 minute walk from Central Station.

* Having 1800 whiskies open in a tiny bar in Amsterdam sure is an achievement, if they had enough space. They don’t. A lot of bottles have to lie down. And with 1800 bottles open it takes forever for a bottle to go empty, except for the usual suspects. This means huge surfaces for oxidation, and therefore MY IDEA that those whiskies can’t be good anymore.

Posted in - Bar | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Cinco de Mayo: Three Mezcales de Leyenda

Posted on 6 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

A while ago I did a second Mezcal bottle-share of which I haven’t reviewed yet. It’s about high I did, since I have been sipping from them and I don’t want them to get emptied before I wrote tasting notes.

The second bottle-share of Mezcal consisted of three mezcals from Mezcales de Leyenda, one Marca Negra and the white bottle mezcal from Alacrán. The last one was a bit of a surprise since I ordered a second version of the Marca Negra but the shop had wrong info on their website. More on that later, if I remember to write about that when the time comes.

Anyway, Mezcales de Leyenda. I really wanted to do these since they’re single agave mezcals. What that means is that, contrary to 90% of the mezcals out there, they’re not made of Espadin agave. The three editions I was able to get are made of Agave Angustifolia (Carribean Agave), Agave Cupreata and Agave Duranguensis. An added cool-factor is that all three of these agaves are harvested from the wild.

Agave Angustifolia

Agave Angustifolia

Agave Cupreata

Agave Cupreata

Agave Durangensis

Agave Durangensis

Mezcal Nauyaca, 100% wild agave Cupreata, 42%, Guerrero, Mexico

On the nose this mezcal is fairly heavy and earthy. I also get flint, smoke and a light scent of agave. Some lime and quite a mineral like scents too. The palate is tingling, but gentle. A bit of a margarita thing going on here. Slightly salty, lime, agave. Earthy too, with a full syrupy sweetness. Lemon oil, that greasy thing. The finish has more smoke, more agave and is full and rich. After that it gets more mineral-y and earthy, and a tad more spicy.

Mezcal Tlucuache, 100% wild agave Angustifolia, 42%, Oaxaca, Mexico

This one is much more fruity and sweet on the nose. Papaya and mango. Slightly smoky with agave and cactus. Also some minerals, but less than the previous one. A bit more flat on the nose. The palate is dry and sharper. Some pepper, sweetness and fruit. Hotter on the tongue but also more warming with very gentle agave flavors. The finish is dry, spicy, hot and less fruity. More smoke, earthy and minerals.

Mezcal Murciélago, 100% wild agave Duranguensis, 47%, Durango, Mexico

The third mezcal has a lot more agave scent on the nose. Some citrus fruit too with a much lighter smoke. Again, slightly more flat on the nose, but again that mineral scent, but no earthiness here. The palate is peppery with red peppercorns, a tad fatty, sweet agave and very dry compared to the rest. Not so light as on the nose. The finish then is dry and warming and sweet. Roasted agave and earthy.

I find it very cool that there is so much variation in mezcal. Maybe not the same as in whisky, but enough to be hugely entertaining and utterly interesting. The three of these are great and very drinkable, with quite enough differences to buy all three of them.

The first has a bit more focus on the minerals and earthy flavors than the second, and the third is a bit of a mix of the others. That also makes the last one a tad inconsistent, and therefore it’s not my favorite of the bunch. However, if you’re looking to buy just one, this one is the more variable one.

The first two are equal in quality from my point of view. Quite different, but I love both the earthy, weighty flavor of the first, and the big fruitiness of the second.

A minor footnote: Of course the agave type makes quite the difference in how the mezcal tastes. This has now been proven. On the other hand, since these mezcals come from three different areas in Mexico there’s also the terroir that makes a difference. The ares from which Agave is harvested has a lot of different climates, altitudes and all kinds of other variables. This has been proven by all the Del Maguey stuff, since that also comes from different areas, but is almost all Espadin Agave.

So, the first 60% of the second Mezcal bottle-share is hugely successful from my perspective. I’ve got a bit of delicious remaining mezcal and got inspired to do this again later this year. The only problem is sourcing enough affordable mezcal since the UK has huge availability but is expensive (even more so with the current exchange rates).

So, to be continued!

Oh, and all three those mezcals are available at Slijterij Leiden and vary per bottle from € 39.95 to € 45.95.

Posted in - Other Spirits, Mezcales de Leyenda | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Millstone 4yo, Peated, Cask 1-009, 49.5% (Zuidam)

Posted on 5 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

This is a weird one. I can’t find any information on this bottle online, and maybe it’s a cask sample I got from someone. I know it’s been sitting in my sample stash for a couple of years and I don’t have a clue where it came from.

I do know that a couple of years ago I got some Zuidam samples from festivals, and there were some bottle-your-own 30 liter casks in a shop in Haarlem that this might come from. Again, not a clue.

What I do know is that a couple of years ago, as in, the better part of a decade, I wasn’t a fan of Zuidam’s whiskies, especially not their single malts. Since their first releases at five years old they’ve come a long way and I also think I understand their whisky a little bit better.

This is a very young peated whisky, at a surprisingly low ABV. 49.5% is not something that sounds like an intended strength, and I would guess it’s a cask strength dram. Knowing Zuidam they could’ve casked it at a lower strength than it came off the still, but it might also have a number of different reasons.

Sniff:
It’s young for sure. There’s peat too but not too much of that. Lots of oak and the peat I get is not the same as Islay peat. More like some of the peat used from the mainland. Like Highland Park does, but more of it. Quite malty and sweet, a lot of plant flavors. Nuts, chocolate, flint too.

Sip:
The palate is dry and oaky, with some vanilla and the green of plants again. A light spiciness with nuts. A strange combination of flavors, but not necessarily a bad one.

Swallow:
The finish shows the weight of the spirit a little bit more. It’s quite heavy and the small cask probably doesn’t add any lightness either. It finishes like a spicy highlander with a lot of peat to it. A bit like Ben Nevis.

I knew I had this sample. But because of some past experiences I’ve never really enjoyed those really young Zuidam whiskies. Therefore this one had been sitting in my cupboard for quite a long time, years even. I have to say that this one exceeded my expectations by quite a bit.

The spirit is very heavy and weighty. It actually tastes a lot more mature than I expected of a four year old. The other expectation of such a, probably, small cask is that there is mostly wood flavors, but the spirit stands up to that nicely. Quite a well done whisky, actually.

So, no clue where the booze comes from, but kudos to Zuidam. It might not win any awards, but this is a dram I wouldn’t regret having a bottle of.

Millstone 4yo, Peated, Cask 1-009, 49.5%. Probably some private cask.

Posted in - World Whisky, Millstone, Zuidam | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Laphroaig 15, 43%, 200th Anniversary Edition

Posted on 3 May 2015 by Sjoerd de Haan-Kramer

It’s been ages since I properly sat down to taste some Laphroaig. It’s not even that there’s nothing available since Laphroaig is one of the couple Islay distilleries that regularly have indies bottled. You don’t have to look far to find a plethora of Laphroaig available, even from the distillery itself.

Over the last couple of years they gone quite mad with their official releases. I remember a time when there was only the 10, 15 and Quarter Cask regularly available. They had some others back ten too, but those were so far out of my league that I never really bothered with them. Currently that’s different, the availability with their Triple Wood, PX Cask, QA Cask, An Cuan Mor and also the 18 (which is a pretty good dram, by the way).

Then recently they released the new 15 year old. It was available through the website first but supposedly that was a hassle since the servers couldn’t cope with the demand. They released this as a flashback to the 15 year old that was phased out a couple of years ago (much to the regret of its loyal fans), but the official reason was to celebrate the Distillery’s 200th anniversary.

The limitedness of this bottling is something to be taken with a grain of salt, by the way, since there are 72000 bottles available. It’ll sell out eventually, but there seem to not be a shortage of any kind at the moment. At a price point of € 110 or so it seems to be a bit much for a lot of whisky drinkers.

Sniff:
The peat on the nose is very old fashioned with some good medicinal scents. Iodine and band-aids. Not too heavy though, but there’s leather, oak and saw dust. Some licorice, bay leaf and heather. Old, dry lemons. Strangely, some acrylic paint too. Never had that before.

Sip:
The palate is slightly fatty with peat and heather and smoke (not the first things that come to mind with a fatty palate). Some straw, iodine, salty with lemon oil. Some myrthe like you find everywhere on Corsica. It’s fairly gentle, but also has a note of sand paper, rope, oak and bay leaf.

Swallow:
The finish is lead by peat and smoke. Salt, bay leaf, rope, boats in a dock (so tar, rope, barnacles, salt, that stuff). Lemon and lime, quite dirty.

While I find a 110 bucks quite expensive, I sure love this whisky. As in, it’s awesome and it shows exactly what a typical Laphroaig should be all about I think. It might not be the most complex of drams, or one of the most intense ones, but with the current trend of cask strength violence from Islay, I like that this one does something different. And it has an age statement.

I’m now seriously considering getting a bottle of this, but I know I shouldn’t. As in, from a financial perspective I know I shouldn’t, but that doesn’t always stop me. Pondering…

It’s actually been quite a while since I had a whisky with this level of medicinal flavors. I half expected that to be something from the past, but I’m glad that is not the case. Massive kudos to Laphroaig!

Laphroaig 15, 43%, 200th Anniversary Edition. Available at Whiskysite.nl for € 109.99

Posted in Laphroaig | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment