This wee blog is exactly seven years old today.
Well, maybe not exactly. Let me tell you a little secret: when I started, I figured it was useless to start with one review. So the real start was further down December 2008 – I published a handful of reviews with dates in the past… The first visitors didn’t show up until 21st of December: one French guy from Colmar, Alsace (I kid you not) and one American from Rowland Heights, California. Thank you, guys, you were the first of 2.5+ million visitors so far.
I thought some Anniversary Edition would be appropriate. The Laphroaig 32 Year Old was launched in October to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the distillery. Old Laphroaig is rare enough already, and sherried Laphroaig all the more.
It includes casks filled between 1980 and 1983. Here’s the recipe:
- 30% of 35yo first-fill Oloroso butts
- 20% of 32yo refill Oloroso butts
- 50% of 34yo Oloroso hogsheads
Laphroaig 32 yo
(46,7%, OB 2015, 5880 btl.)
Nose: quite… well… normal. Really old Islay whiskies tend to have less peat smoke and sometimes a glorious fruitiness. This one is still rather sooty, with quite a lot of ashy notes. Plenty of menthol and eucalyptus as well. Behind this, there are great sherry notes: toffee, dried figs, cinnamon and brown sugar. Hints of red berries, maybe a little ripe mango in the background. Subtle raspberry vinegar. Roasted peanuts.
Mouth: again a deep smokiness and tarry notes up front, something diesel-like and ashes, before it gets to a nice fruitiness. Raisins but also lots of pink grapefruits and a faint tropical note (mango, papaya). Signature medicinal and coastal notes (iodine). Nutmeg and pepper. Leather. A lightly acrid earthiness too.
Finish: long, warm and smoky. Vaguely sweet but mostly savoury, with dark cocoa and ginger.
This was surprisingly peaty – I’d think of this as modern production rather than a Laphroaig from a previous era, but that doesn’t make it less great. It’s nicely polished and balanced, which makes the price almost fair. Around € 1200 but prices tend to differ.
Score: 92/100