Origin: Isle of Islay (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Gradation: 48%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex Bourbon, ex quarter cask and ex-Sherry Oloroso
Chillfiltered: Yes
Additional coloring: Yes
Owner: Suntory
Average price: € 58.00
Official website: www.laphroaig.com
Vote: 80/100
Initially conceived for airport duty free, it soon became part of the distillery’s core portfolio with some success.
Three different ageings, first in Bourbon, then in quarter cask and finally in Sherry Oloroso, a multiplication of casks that winks at the market and perhaps has little to do with a real creative impulse, but in the end it is the final result that counts and what arrives in the glass, let’s leave the diatribes to nerds.
Tasting notes
Hints of crispy bacon and sea spray rise to the nose, with the usual medicinal note in the background, albeit less pronounced, soon joined by pineapple, ripe peach, tamarind, toasted almonds, caramel and liquorice. Pop corn. Not particularly rich but pleasant.
Salty and fruity mouthfeel, abundantly sprinkled with ash, with ginger, red fruits, peach, caramel, orange drink, liquorice, aniseed and dried fruits. Hints of rhubarb along the length. Not very incisive, the flavours seem rather subdued and a little contrived, tending to succumb to the spicy and ashy edges.
The finish is quite long, of salt and ash, bitter orange marmalade, caramel, aniseed.
Technically speaking, a meh whisky, not very convincing, with the distillery’s signature perceptible and little else, a generically peaty drink like so many others, which does not leave great memories of itself.