Sunday, 25 May 2014

Laphroaig - 8 year old - Provenance - Douglas Laing - Review

To follow on from my update yesterday, where I introduced the recent "Big Peat" tweet tasting, I'm back again to take you onto the 2nd of the 5 drams sampled.

Incidentally if you missed the first update it can be found by clicking here.

For the second dram of the evening we moved to the south of Islay, to the ever popular Laphroaig Distillery. 

This whisky also comes from Douglas Laing's "Provenance" range and is a youthful 8 years old.  Bottled at 46% ABV, this particular bottling is from 1 refill hogshead which was filled in 2005 and bottled in 2014.

Onto the notes:

Nose - Fruity and tropical with sting hints of lemon and banana.  Distinctly young alcohol can be detected along with some brine.  With a touch of water buttered peat arrives along with a very strange sense of newly printed magazines (weird I know, but quite nice).

Palate - Big malty, sweet arrival.  The young alcohol is here in abundance with a hot nip in the mouth.  This is backed up with a good whack of menthol.  Spicy, stewed oranges bring the sensation back to a more fruity feel.  When the water is added the heat is definitely toned down allowing the experience to become sweeter with the smoke and peat making a return.

Finish - This dram leaves a big heat kick in the mouth and is intensely drying.  The final finish is one of pear and apple.

Overall this is a bit of an untamed beast.  Compared to the Caol Ila, in the first update, this seems more suited to the moniker "Young & Feisty".  That said, this whisky definitely has it's good points.  The fruitiness of the spirit is evident and I feel this gives a great insight into a well known distillery.  Distinctly coastal with a great deal of pleasure to be found given time with the dram, along with some water.  Unfortunately, due to the very nature of tweet tastings, time was not something I had.  Hopefully in the future I can obtain another sample of this and discover what hidden treasures are sure to be found within this whisky.

As with all of these updates relevant links can be found below and I'll be back tomorrow with the 3rd little gem.

Until next time,

Slainte.

SI




Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)