Laphroaig Cairdeas 2019 Triple Wood Cask Strength

 

I’ve been looking forward to this one for ages. So many comments about how great this is, plus the fact that I simply love Laphroaig, left me pretty eager. I grabbed a bottle, and before even trying it based on reviews I picked up another when it happened to be on a local shelf. As has happened with so many whiskies I’ve bought, it ended up behind others already owned in line and sometimes even got leapfrogged as I work to get my temporally relevant reviews caught up, but finally it got it’s chance to shine. Did it?

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2019 Triple Wood Cask Strength, Islay Single Malt, 59.5% ABV

Minutia: Matured in ex-bourbon, ex-Oloroso, and quarter casks for some amount of time before bottling in March 2019. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.

Color: Auburn, polished mahogany; 1.5.

Nose: Smoke with a medicinal twinge. Mostly industrial, tar/blacktop, but definite fruit. All behind a musty overlay.

Taste: Big oak, spice, dry smoke. Chemical.

Finish: Musty smoke. Oak. Salt.

Classic Laphroaig. A lot to like. Tastes great, but the nose is the star of the show. Very happy I trusted you fine people and grabbed that second bottle.

Score: 86

Octomore 7.3

 

After having covid, my whisky consumption – and thus capacity for reviews – declined somewhat (in part due to taste/smell implications) so it’s been a bit since I’ve posted a reivew, but I’ve gotten to this one (expect a few reviews in pretty quick succession prior to starting my Advent calendar in December). I think this was the second Octomore I bought a couple years ago after reading some really great things. Between that time and opening it I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying a handful of them, and thus far the floor for an Octomore has been pretty high, but so has the ceiling. I’m wondering where this falls as I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.

Octomore 7.3, Islay Single Malt, 63% ABV

Minutia: Distilled in 2010 from grain harvested from a single field, malted to 169 ppm. Matured on Islay for five years in ex-bourbon casks and Ribera del Duero Spanish wine casks and bottled in late 2015. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.

Color: Burnished; 1.1.

Nose: Smoke with a nutty, malty sweetness. Homemade popcorn. 

Taste: Sweetness in the tropical area, chili spice. Green wood and smoke.

Finish: Dry, woody smoke. Bitter coffee. Long.

It’s quite good, and I enjoy it, but the palate is a bit too bitter for it to be a homerun for me. The nose is much nicer than the limited specific notes mentioned above would suggest, that would fall in the 90s with the palate elements in the mid to high 80s. On the lower end of Octomores for me, if you can believe it, but I’ve had some that were just tremendous so it’s a tough act to follow (7.2, 9.3, and 10.3 come to mind).

Score: 88

Croftengea 11 2007 Jack Wiebers Auld Distillers Collection

I had to take a break from reviewing for a few weeks due to covid crippling my senses, but fortunately they’ve returned more quickly than I’d even hoped for. For a while I’d been intrigued by Croftengea, and Loch Lomond in general. It’s an interesting distillery, and I’ve taken a couple chances on novel expressions I haven’t yet tried, such as a peated whisky from the SMWS with a 100% malt mashbill that was distilled in a column still thus needing to be designated as single grain. As a peat fan, when reading of Loch Lomond the two brands that caught my attention were Inchmoan and Croftengea. I’ve seen Croftengea described as the peatiest whiskt they produce, but have seen ppm spec that indicate Inchmoan is peated a but more, so I can’t really say for sure. All that said, this is my first expression from the distillery so hopes are high.

Croftengea 11, 2007 Vintage, Jack Weibers, Highland Single Malt, 53.5% ABV

Minutia: Distilled in 2007and matured in a bourbon cask for 11 years and bottled in 2018 yielding 220 bottles. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn, also water added later on.

Color: Pale gold; 0.3.

Nose: Mineraly, salty, winey, smoke later. Dank and musty.

Taste: Earthy and vegetal, smoke, salt.

Finish: Musty, salty, peppery. Long.

Interesting one to say the least. Initially, I really disliked it. It was a bit too funky for me (and as a Campbeltown and Ledaig fan, that’s saying something) and it had an overall feel a beverage can have when it’s ‘turned’. That, however, was in the first few drams I had to get a sense of the whisky (when I have a bottle, I make an effort to have a few drams (or more) pretty casually before actually reviewing it). Of course, the process is different in those settings. Whatever was ‘off’ to me when sipping casually wasn’t present when holding the whisky in my mouth to let my tongue get acquainted with it. It performed much better in this context, and while not a revelation, it was a decent dram. Water muted everything a bit. It didn’t drown, and it did help mute some less desirable aspects, but it muted the desirable ones as well. I’m not sure I’d adjust to score based on water.

Score: 77

Amrut Peated Cask Strength Batch 51

My first foray into whisky Asia (for review, anyway, I’ve had a handful of drams of Japanese and Taiwanese whiskies) and a Cask Strength one at that. I suppose I might prefer to have had the standard proof peated Amrut before, but I like the idea of considering it as its own product rather than a version of another. Anyway, here we go. 

Amrut Peated Cask Strength, India Single Malt, 62.8% ABV

Minutia: Distilled from Scottish peated malted barley and matured in India in oak barrels for some amount of time. Bottled in July 2019 as part of batch 51. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.

Color: Russet, Muscat; 1.3.

Nose: Dusty spice. Nutty.

Taste: Hot and spicy, similar spices as in the nose.

Finish: Smoke cuts through the spice, spice lingers a bit. Long.

This isn’t entirely off-putting, but as is it’s not for me. Even with water I still found it incredibly hot and that heat and spice remained very present even after the palate was feeling diluted. I’m not super motivated to try this again, but it’s worth noting this was reviewed with covid. I haven’t noticed any compromises in my senses of smell and taste, but given an easy enough opportunity I’d give this another shot. At any rate, it’s not enough for me to write off Indian whisky, or even Amrut, and further exploration is warranted.

Score: 71

Musical Evocation: Drudkh – “Indiánská píseň hrůzy”

Talisker 15 Cask Strength Special Release 2019

Finally getting to this almost to the day when the release two years later gets released.

Tallisker 15 Cask Strength 2019 Special Release, Island (Skye) Single Malt, 57.3% ABV

Minutia: Matured for 15 years in freshly charred American oak hogsheads and bottled in 2019. Enjoyed neat in a glencairn.

Color: Burnished; 1.1.

Nose: Smoke under minerally fruit. Malt with a lemony twinge to it. 

Taste: Spice, black pepper into cayenne. Tames to wood.

Finish: Malty, drying, a bit of spice. Ash late. Long. Like, very long.

This is pretty good, it’s nice to try an older cask strength expression from one of the first distilleries I enjoyed. I’ll have to revisit this in the future as the review was conducted with covid. While I don’t notice any loss of smell or taste elsewhere and got most if not all notes I expected from this, that could have been affected.

Score: 87