I always had the impression that the Quarter Cask and 10y Cask Strength are the most popular Laphroaigs. Well, I haven’t tried them all, but the 10y CS definitely is a classic Laphroaig. It’s said the recent batches are really good, at the same level of the older (“Green stripe”) bottlings. Let me see…
Laphroaig 10 yo ‘Original Cask strength’ (55,7%, OB 2006)
Nose: lovely deep smoke with tarry notes and lots of phenol. Balanced with sweet vanilla, a bit of brown sugar and some fruity notes. Medicinal. Seaweed. A bit of lemon, burried somewhere underneath.
Mouth: powerful start, very robust and quite peppery. The best ashtray ever! Becomes sweeter (toffee, caramel) with a salty edge.
Finish: long and hot. Phenols again. Smoky with a hint of gasoline.
This is very very good whisky. Among the best standard bottlings on the market. This punchy classic is a must-have for every Islay enthousiast. Around € 45. Score: 89/100.
A small note: Laphroaig announced that they will release different batches of the 10yo CS in the future. So instead of trying to reproduce the same flavour profile over and over again, they will allow some variations in the profile and the alcohol volume. It seems to become trendy to do this (Lagavulin 12yo, Springbank 1997, Aberlour A’bunadh…), and one of the reasons may be that it may convince enthousiasts to buy all the different batches and see how they compare. Edition n°1 will be bottled shortly.