Tasting Notes

• Tasting notes by Billy A

  Nose: Oily and sweet – soft olive oil, baked apples and touches of sweet sultana. Warm leather and coal smoke sit behind, with carbolic soap, TCP, freshly laid tarmac and dry ash. Between those two extremes is a rich grassy note, a combination of chlorophyll bitterness, sweet green grass and peppery olive oil. Candied sweetness as it sits in the glass – banana chips and dried tropical fruit.

  Palate: Richly textured and, again, oily on the palate. It starts gently, with some soft spice, honeysuckle and lightly sweetened lemonade, before the richness rolls in: charcoal, ash, tar, sweet-smelling leather, pungent pipe tobacco, raisins, stewed plums, toasted marshmallows, and sharp apples and their skins. After the initial burst of flavour, things settle down and reveal a dry and ashy core with a mineral, coastal and medicinal character – classic Laphroaig.

  Finish: A burst of sweet apple is joined by ash and forest puddles. The darker flavours fade, leaving anise, apple, green grass and a hint of riverbank earth.

  Comment: A Laphroaig that definitely fulfils the brief – it's rich. Not rich with sherry fruit, but rich in intensity and range of flavour, combining the key Laphroaig characteristics: medicinal peat, fruit, floral notes and a dryness.

• Producer's Tasting Notes

  Colour: Deep mahogany.

  Nose: Rich and smoky with seaside minerals with a hint of ash and bitter chocolate drops. Vanilla follows with oily unroasted chestnuts and a hint of fudge with a malty sweetness. A drop of water adds a creamy clotted cream note with fruit appearing in the form of unripe citrus in a flan glaze.

  Palate: Richly peaty with a spicy chilli bite.

  Finish: Short dry finish and a long sweet aftertaste.