onsdag 14 november 2018

Elements of Islay – Lp9 [Laphroaig] 54,3% ABV!

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! When working this years Borlänge Beer and Whiskyfestival last weekend ("as usual" for Edrington Sweden), I was very happy that my good friend Tina Sundblom from Clydesdale came by and said: We brought the new Laphroaig from Elements of Islay, if you want to review it do pop by and sample it!. Well folks, that was something I really wanted to review so as you can imagine it did not take me very long to do just that. In fact, ever since I saw Clydesdale post the news on their FB-page that they would release this one here in Sweden very soon, my mouth has been watering just by looking at the color...




Tina also told me that they just now received three extra boxes or so of this one, so right now there should be around 20 or so bottles ready to order via the swedish state monopoly, and you can find it by clicking hereOk, the whisky has been matured for 19 years (vintage 1998) in a Pedro Ximénez sherry butt, it has been bottled at 54,3% ABV (cask strength I assume), and the cask gave 714 50cl bottles. Ok, let's nose it!


Nose:
Really dark notes in this one folks! Ashy vanilla, mysterious old and lurking peat in the form of moist old leather and old boots intermingling with rawsugar and dark, dark, dark almond paste (”Who has ever heard of such a thing?!”). The peat kind of makes me think of decayed seaweed but at the same time there is some kind of pollen in there… and deep in the mix there are actually some preserved plums (perhaps even plums preserved in whisky?). Vere deep, very dark. Ok, a sip?


Taste:
Oh my g… wow, starts off on the old and mysterious peat, very ocean-y but still with elements of syrup made from rawsugar. Then comes a beauuutiful fruityness, not like the one on the nose but rather dark and big supermoist raisins, but, in liquid form! The whisky definitely feels very sluggish in my mouth; with medium dryness, the flavours develop slowly but beautifully, my mouth is filled with dark liquid honey with a peaty touch to it. As the ”alcohol-fumes” rise, I experience the flavours of leather, seaweed and ashes slowly rising in my mouth. The aftertaste is slow and long, the dark peat comes in waves together with oven-baked orange peel sprinkled with salt and seaweed, and what remains is the aftertaste of smoke from a fat peaty cigar… wow!


To sum up: Well folks, as you know I absolutely love Laphroaig, and this one is definitely not an exception! After 19 years in one PX Butt the whisky has become simply amazing and (for some reason) I did not expect it to be so ”alive”. At the core of everything (both the nose and the taste) is of course the old peat absolutely drenched in dark notes. If you’ve never tried old heavy Laphroaigs, you should really try this one, and hurry up! 

Big, big thanks to Tina and Clydesdale for the possibility to try this whisky! In order to receive kind of weekly updates, please make sure to follow my FB-page by clicking here, my instagram by clicking here and my twitter-page by clicking here. Copyright © and All Rights Reserved on all tasting notes and text by SamuelWhisky and pictures and videos likewise belong to SamuelWhisky, unless stated. If you would like to use any such material that belongs to SamuelWhisky or associated with SamuelWhisky, please ask by sending me an email to samuelkarlssonorebro [at] gmail [dot] com and by stating the source.

Picture borrowed from whisky.fr   

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