The King’s whisky.
I could probably just leave it there to be honest. Laphroaig is a household name for any scotch drinker. It’s perhaps the most famous Islay whisky – and for good reason too. Laphroaig is a distillery that bottles a solid 10 year old peated single malt. Some of the older whisky heads will tell you that it tasted even better 30 years ago; I’ll give you my opinion on that when I finally try it. The Laphroaig distillery is a stones-throw away from the Lagavulin distillery in Port Ellen. They’ve had their run-ins with each other over the years, and rumour has it that Lagavulin tried to copy Laphroaig’s flavour profile. I don’t want to spoil a future review, but I’ve tasted Laphroaig 10 and Lagavulin 16 side by side – and although they are more similar than different, they are their own products with their own flavours.
Laphroaig 10 is quickly becoming my favourite dram.
I don’t want to sound all poetic and self indulgent but Laphroaig 10 just does it for me. It’s a whisky I can sip and just enjoy without anything else happening. Just like you and I can sit in the darkness and listen to our favourite albums, or watch our favourite films. I can do that exact thing with just this whisky it’s that good. I’m very interested in how much different an older bottling is compared to a modern bottling because if the word on the street is true that it’s much better than the current bottlings, then I’m in for a real treat. Back to the present – the current bottle looks the part. At the risk of sounding a bit like Patrick Bateman, the egg shell textured label is class. It isn’t overly flashy and the wooden bottle top is the cherry on the cake. For all the smoke I’ve been blowing up its backside, there are a few downfalls to Laphroaig 10. Firstly, it is chill-filtered. This is a technique whereby the whisky is chilled down to around 0C and then passed through filters. These filters remove particles from the spirit which would make it cloudy when the whisky is chilled or water is added. This cloudiness, according to some boffins in lab coats, are esters of long-chain fatty acids and larger alkyl esters. To put it simply, chill-filtration removes from the liquid and the reason it’s done is to maintain a consistent clear liquid that doesn’t cloud if the temperature drops. It’s essentially trading a bit of taste for subjectively better aesthetic. I’d rather keep the taste. The second slight issue is that it’s bottled at 40%. You could argue that Laphroaig Quarter Cask gives us an option for a higher ABV bottling, and you wouldn’t be wrong; but that’s only while Laphroaig 10 is sold on offer. You can pick Laphroaig 10 up for around £30 when offers are running, whilst Laphroaig Quarter Cask is around £47 – but when those offers aren’t on, there’s only a couple of quid between them. Lastly, Laphroaig 10 contains added colour. Again, similar to chill-filtration – this is added for the visual aesthetic at the expense of the taste. Food grade colourants still add flavour. Some will argue that it either doesn’t (it does), or it does very little (…but it still does). With all that being said, it’s clearly not enough for me to dislike Laphroaig 10 because it hasn’t been panned in this review. Onto the tasting; it’s 40% ABV and I won’t be adding any water to this tasting.
NOSE: Warm spices straight away and rich leather with a tarry bite, toffee, green leaf/grass, it carries a smell similar to rain on hot tarmac
TASTE: Instant hit of leather and peat smoke – although it’s more medicinal than say Lagavulin or Ardbeg. That famous TCP flavour coming through. The grass translates onto the taste too, and the tarriness lingers around before the finish. The finish is long, upwards of 13 seconds – although the main flavours do dissipate towards the end and it’s the ethanol that’s left behind.
SUMMARY: Laphroaig 10 is a hit with me. Its Royal Warrant is warranted, and although it hasn’t entirely kept up with the times with being an honest single malt (added colourant, chill-filtered), it’s delicious. For the price it can be picked up for, it’s great bang for buck. It’ll have a place in my cabinet for as long as it continues to deliver like it does. I’ll have to pick up a bottle of Quarter Cask to try – and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for a dram from a vintage bottle.
8.5/10
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