It was only last week when the members of Laphroaig maling list received a letter from John Campbell, the distillery manager, with a full summary of what happened in Laphroaig during 2015, the 200th anniversary year. In addition, in the letter John wrote we can expect a new expression to hit the shelves in Spring 2016, and and a few details were already revealed.

The new expression will be called Laphroaig Lore, and will it be bottled at 48%.

On the label it says: “Liquid drawn from a selection of aged casks has crafted a rich and deep malt with distinctive smoke, peat and seaside minerality”.

What can we learn from this description? Unfortunately, not much but there a few points we can conclude from the available data:

• It’s a NAS whisky. Yeah, another whisky without an age statement.
• It will be mostly (or even exclusively) ex-bourbon casks.
• It’s probably a permanent addition to the line up.
• It will probably be launched on time for Feis Ile 2016, just like the 15yo was launched prior to Feis 2015.

There are also some questions without answers: Where does the richness comes from? 1st fill casks or some other methods? Does “richer” in flavours means it will be more expensive? I think we can safely assume it will cost more than Laphroaig Select/10yo and maybe even more than the Travel retail exclusives (PX/Brodir), but only time will tell.