It’s Laphroaig open day in Feis Ile 2015 festival. I don’t hide the fact that it’s my favorite distillery and it kinda kill me that I’m not there as Laphroaig is celebrating their bicentenary (200 years).

Because it’s their bicentenary, I’ll review two Laphroaig whiskies today. The first one is last year Cairdeas 2014 and the other one is the special release for Feis Ile 2015 from Douglas Laing – the Old Particular Laphroaig 14.

The Cairdeas (which is pronounced ‘car-chase’, means ‘friendship’ in Gaelic) 2014 was matured in bourbon barrels and Amontillado hogsheads, which is different sherry type from the more commonly used Oloroso/PX and it boasts different flavours on the whisky.

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2014 (51.4%)

Nose: Sweet peat and tropical fruits with strong papaya and banana notes. Sour unripe forest fruits, yellow plums and sour bitter oak. Slowly the peat smoke rises up with charcoal and touch of medicinal/iodine note but the sweetness fights back and the balance is between the sweet and peat is rolling back and forth. With water it’s sweeter, fruitier and almost flowering.

Palate: Big and rich. Soursweet with tropical edge and the full Laphroaig peat treatment: iodine, salt, acrid peat, smoke and ash, the whole 9 yards. a bit of oak toward the end.

Finish: Long finish with peat, ash, sweetness, oak and spent espresso bitterness

Thoughts: It’s a good Laphroaig whisky. It’s better and more coherent than the Cairdeas 2013 version in my opinion (which I should publish notes for as well). Overall it’s good and it has a bit extraordinary profile which is exactly what I’d expect from Cairdeas bottle