Tasting Notes

• Producer's Tasting Notes

  Colour: Deep mahogany.

  Nose: Reminiscent of Christmas fruit cake, the rich sherry sweetness and aroma of caramelised brown sugar are predominant.

  Palate: The dark bitter chocolate follows through to the palate with nutmeg and intense spicy, oakiness.

  Finish: Dry, long and lingering sherried-oak finish.

• Tasting Notes by Billy A

  Nose: Blackcurrant and liquorice sweets, damp bracken and smouldering hay. It smells old, with classic dunnage warehouse flavours of bung cloth and earth joined by rich peat. The traditionally sharp medicinal notes of TCP and sea-spray ozone sit on top as a contrast, although sweet notes of icing sugar, chocolate butter icing, candied fruit and boiled sweets keep things balanced.

  Palate: Rich peat, dark chocolate and damp-forest campfires – earthy rancio, tree bark and burning pine needles – red berries, cinnamon spice and freshly cracked black pepper. Behind the earth and spice are the sweet-and-sour fruity notes that you'd expect from a Laphroaig of this age – apples (sweet, sharp and baked), mango, star fruit, lime skin and bitter orange peel – as well as dark, sweet liquorice.

  Finish: Big and spicy to start, with tingly black-pepper heat. The flavours fade slowly, leaving liquorice, chocolate sauce and stewed fruit.

  Comment: Much more intense than I expected from the small number of other well-aged Laphroaigs I've had the opportunity to taste. It has the fruitiness that I love in their whisky once the peat has started to fade, but also has lots of smoke and a punch of flavour from the sherry casks.