Laphroaig 23yo ’Vintage 1989’ 48,9% ABV

The moment is finally here for me to try a newly released whisky from one of my favourite distilleries, namely Laphroaig! The 1st of October, Laphroaig released a whisky exclusively for the nordic countries Sweden, Norway and Finland. The swedish state monopoly liquor store got 1800 bottles. According to the norwegian blog stow.no 3500 bottles has been released in total and the whisky is said to be matured in refill sherry puncheons (made out of spanish oak and holding about 500 litres). Okay, that sounds exciting, let’s try it!

Colour:

Taking a look at the colour I find it hard to believe that this is matured in refill sherrycasks…

Nose:

The nose also says so; the sherry-influence is big! When the whisky is just standing in the glass waiting for me, big whiffs of dark sherry comes towards me through the air. Picking up the glass I get a little burnt note, something like burnt grass in combination with lightly roasted almonds, dark raisins, heavy notes of dried figs and all this is surrounded by a beautiful peaty nose. Touches of leather. At a second nosing I get a quite citric, zesty, clementine-peel-y note in the centre of the nose. There’s also loads of vanilla. The nose is deep, take my word for it. This is truly mouthwatering stuff we have here, so let’s see what’s on the palate!

Palate:

Mmm, a pure beauty! Starts of soft, creamy, quite sweet like some kind of liquid honey, but then comes a quit fire-y peat. It’s rich in texture, mature, loads of sherry-influence. The peat and the sherry has a great interplay. There’s a little burnt note and almost something that reminds me of peanuts but minus the salt. After a few seconds it starts to get quite dry on the palate, a little heat that warms my chest. The peat becomes bigger in the aftertaste… This is, in my humble opinion, a very good sherry-matured Laphroaig and I find it very hard to believe that this is matured in refill sherry casks. But I will ask Vicky about it tomorrow when we work in the Laphroaig-stand together at the Örebro beer & whiskyfestival… If this truly is matured in refill sherry casks, let me tell you friends, the refill sherry casks used at Laphroaig distillery is of very good quality! Slainthé!