Single Malt Report: Laphroaig 10 year old Cask Strength, batch 007

'Twas requested, now here it is: a review of Laphroaig 10 year old Cask Strength, batch 007.  My bottle of batch 005 was such a disappointment that I now refuse to buy any batch of the Laphroaig CS blind again.  Batch 006 was a definite improvement, but still had a noticeable amount of the unfortunate sugar+oak that plagued 005.  While I still refuse to lose hope that Laphroaig will right their ship and get their classic 10yo expressions right, I was skeptical about batch 007, even though it received a great review from sausagemeister.com.  Luckily my friend, Brett With The Labelmaker, immediately offered up a sample of the 007 after the 005 & 006 review.  Thanks, Brett!

On a related note, most local whisky stores here are still selling batch 006 and haven't even gotten to 007 yet.  Is this due to overproduction of recent batches or did 005 put a real dent in Laphroaig CS enthusiasm out here?  Meanwhile, batch 008 has already been released in Europe.  But back to batch 007...

Distillery: Laphroaig

Owner: Beam Suntory
Region: Islay
Maturation: ex-bourbon barrels

Age: minimum 10 years
Batch: 007, Feb 2015

Chill-filtration? No
Caramel colored? Probably

Alcohol by Volume: 56.3%

NEAT
A further reduction of the sugar and vanilla and butter on the nose.  Yay!  But it's also not a peat monster.  Lots of limes, hints of mango.  Dried basil, smoky chocolate, new carpet.  Mossy and salty peat, but no medicinal notes to speak of.  The palate is pretty sharp and edgy, really peppery (green and pink peppercorns).  Herbal, salty, not sweet.  An enormous herbal bitterness starts to take over at the 10 minute mark.  Big spirit and little oak in the finish.  Cigarettes, soil, roots, and bitter smoke.

WITH WATER (~48%abv)
More anise in the nose.  Fresher herbs (oregano?), one flower blossom, and a much woodier smoke.  Whew, if there was any sweetness when it was neat, water washes it right out of the palate.  No soft notes, all aggression.  Bitter greens, earth, peppery mint leaves, and peppercorns.  Bitter smoke in the finish, with those bitter greens too.  Seaweed, tart blackberries, and dark chocolate.

COMMENTARY:
This is a definite change of pace from the previous two batches.  Though the nose has its pretty sides, its palate is a real smack in the mouth.  I dig the herbal bitterness and huge pepper notes, and the neatly served finish actually feels like Laphroaig.  So, to me, this is another step up for the CS.  But it kinda has to be your sort of thing, with the bitterness and pepper.  It's missing the iodine, medicinal stuff, and more of the unique Laphroaig style, plus I wouldn't mind some sort of added dimension to the palate.  But, thankfully, they're approaching their old form.

Availability - Many specialty retailers
Pricing - It's still $55-$85 depending on where you live.  Winesearcher's charts show that its average US price has gone up only 10% over the past 5 years. Remarkable.
Rating - 88

Single Malt Report: Laphroaig Lore

Don't worry this isn't another TL;DR post full of declarations about the consumer's soul.  It's just a review about a whisky, a relevant whisky too!

Though the word "lore" usually refers to the past, Laphroaig Lore is yet another NAS release chock full of blending and various casks, clearly following the path of The New Laphroaig.  Because it was NAS, some of us cynics wondered why it was going for 3x-4x the price of Laphroaig Select.  In March, @RecursieWhisky planted a nice jab on Twitter about this issue, which was enough to get a response from Laphroaig's distillery manager, John Campbell.

@RecursieWhisky not being cheeky but facts are wrong on this liquid. 7-21 year old liquids with 3 more ages in between. Hope this helps

— John Campbell (@LaphroaigJohn) March 10, 2016

The full conversation is worth browsing if you get a chance, especially when Recursie asks why they then don't proudly list the 7yo age statement on the bottle.  Campbell responds, "because it's not a 7 year old liquid".  Well, it is 7 year old liquid according to the Scotch Whisky Association.  Perhaps Laphroaig may want to join Compass Box's campaign to allow for more disclosure of whiskies' contents.  Or perhaps they don't.  As long as customers continue to pay three figures for mystery meat, why would they want more transparency?

Ruben of Whiskynotes mentions in his review of Lore, that this is the unofficial replacement for the 15yo and 18yo.  If Laphroaig disclosed the contents of every Lore batch, then this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.  Otherwise: mystery meat.

Distillery: Laphroaig

Owner: Beam Suntory
Region: Islay

Age: 7 years and older
Maturation: Quarter casks, virgin European oak casks, refill casks, first fill ex-bourbon casks, first fill ex-oloroso casks, and possibly more.

Chill-filtration? No
Caramel colored? ???

Alcohol by Volume: 48%
(Many thanks to Josh of The Whiskey Jug for this sample! The man loves this whisky.)

Its color is a light gold.  There's plenty of the New Laphroaig sugary and oaky style in the nose, but there's also quite a bit of dank dingy peat beneath it.  Both the dark and the light existing simultaneously but separately.  Then there's vanilla smoke, wet sand, salt, tar, and sugar cookies. Some peaches in the far back.  The palate is very toasty.  There's a nice graceful peating up front, met by a good brisk bitterness.  More herbal (oregano?) than sugary.  Some floral peat that's reminiscent of older Longrow.  With lots of air, some gnarly rough peat rises up, met by cinnamon bread, and salt.  The bitterness expands in the finish.  Sharp peat smoke, seaweed, and miso.  An angrier Laphroaig than in the nose.

COMMENTARY:
This is an odd cat and a rare instance (for me) of the palate being more impressive than the nose.  The old and new malt, along with the assortment of casks, never merge in the nose which gave me reason for concern.  But the palate salvages it.  It's a tasty one, developing gradually from grace to power.  Since it's whisky, thus it's intended to be tasted, I'll weight the palate heavier than the nose.

I wouldn't doubt if Lore does indeed replace the 18 and 15, being that it exists in the late 18's price point.  I think the 18 was a better all around whisky (especially for its last two years), and I found the recent limited edition 15 year old to be more consistent in the nose than this.  But Lore tastes great and delivers a quality Laphroaig wallop at the end.

Availability - most specialty retailers, except it's slow to get to California as usual
Pricing - $110-$145
Rating - 86

No Whisky Consumer is Ever Really Powerless, and a review of Booker's Rye

It sucks when you can't afford the thing you like.  It sucks worse when you feel powerless over this inability to purchase your desire.  Thus the commodification and premiumisation of whisky sucks.  It sucks the simple pleasures away and replaces them with the reminder that you are impotent in the face of large outside forces.  You feel anger because the stuff you like has been taken from you.  So you react.  Either you buy things you can't afford anyway.  Or you rage about these offenses against mankind on the corner of every online avenue.  Or you recognize that, damn, you've become emotionally dependent on an inanimate object, and that the people and systems that created this thing do not care about your existence.  And then you're left trying to figure out how you got to this point.  But rather than confronting this personal issue, you find it much easier to complain about prices, publicly swear you're not going to feed the market animal, and then quietly continue to buy whiskies at many times the rate at which you'll consume them.  Trust me, you'll be angry again.  Very soon.

This is my review of the new limited edition Booker's Rye, now selling and selling out for over $300.  Many many thanks to The Whiskey Jug for this sample.

Owner: Beam Suntory
Brand: Booker's
Type: Straight Rye Whisky
Distillery: Jim Beam Distillery
Location: Clermont, Kentucky
Mash Bill: known only by a dead man, apparently
Age: 13 years
Batch: 1
Alcohol by volume: 68.1%

REVIEW:
There are so many dessert elements in the nose: toffee pudding, vanilla pods, almond croissants, milk chocolate, and toasted coconut.  Then there's something in between creamsicles and orange sherbet.  Puffs of wood smoke here and there.  Occasional moments of old oak framing the spirit.  Sometimes there's a hint of maple.  The palate leads with caramel sauce.  In fact its texture is almost as thick as caramel sauce.  Roasted almonds.  Tart raspberries and tart cherries.  Maybe some sour fruit candy.  Again, some wood smoke.  Rolos infused with cayenne pepper in the finish.  More of the caramel sauce, with tart berries and cherries.

COMMENTARY:
What do you pay for when you buy a whiskey?  Are you buying the story?  Are you buying the packaging?  Are you buying the exclusivity?  Or are you just buying the fluid in the bottle?

We put our trust in the producers that the information on the label is correct, that the whiskey is X years old, so-and-so abv, that it's "Straight", that it's bottled-in-bond or a single barrel.  These are regulated by a government unit, but it's an entity that can't even get its own rules right when approving alcoholic products.  And that's just the label.

Then there's the story.  Story is essential, or so a revered whisky writer said publicly to a group of craft entrepreneurs a couple years ago.  So story is what we continue get, from both the little guys and the big guys.  Sometimes (if not the majority of the time), there's no truth behind the story.  Rather than take one element of a product and exploit its indispensable nature, many companies support the marketing approach of The Complete Lie, horking up a sticky web of effluvium to capture revenue.

But sometimes the tale may be true.  Booker Noe probably did make this one batch of high-rye rye whiskey before he passed away, taking the recipe with him.  Maybe this is legitimately limited and scarce.  Does that thrill you enough to entice you to pay triple the price of what you'd normally see for a pre-pubescent rye?  And speaking of the listed age, there isn't much 13yo rye out there to begin with, so does that get you to pay considerably more than you would for an 8yo rye?  I'm not talking about market forces.  I'm talking about the human behavior behind those forces.  I'm talking about we, the micro.

But am I anything more than superficially part of the 'we"?  Whisk(e)y pricing doesn't make any sense to me.  People buying whiskies at five to ten times the rate they consume the stuff doesn't make any sense to me.  People piling up credit card debt to buy things just to keep up with the cult doesn't make any sense to me.  I can't relate to any of this.  It's been years since I felt the ache of this consuming addiction, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything by not committing to the chase.  Does this make me a bad whisky blogger?  Does this make me unreliable?  Am I no longer part of the club?  Frankly, my dear, I don't give a fuck.

Booker's Rye is one of the best ryes I've had, comparable to the finest of Willett/MGP and Buffalo Trace.  While its nose is tremendous, its palate is merely awesome.  While I usually have issues with overbearing oak in whiskies half its age, that's not the case here.  The oak merges and heightens the well-matured spirit.  What a treat!  Would I buy it for $300?  No.  Would I buy it for half that price?  No.  But, though I've never paid $100 for an American whiskey, I would probably break that rule with this one.  The scarcity and the story do not move me as much as the whiskey itself does.  So I could recommend it at $100.  If the backstory affects your wallet's emotions and enhances your buying and drinking experience enough to pay thrice that amount, have at it.  But don't get angry when the next rye with a three-act structure enters the market with a $400 tag.  Especially if it's another rye by the same company.

Availability - Primary market? Good luck with that. Secondary market? Aplenty.
Pricing - $300 is the floor, there is no ceiling
Rating - 92

Single Malt Report: Islay Distillery 8 year old 2007 Exclusive Malts, cask 1601

I reviewed the 7 year old 2007 single cask yesterday.  Today I'm posting about the 8 year old 2007.  I tasted these two very different whiskies side by side a few nights ago.  I was a big fan of the 7yo, let's see how the 8yo fares.

Distillery: Lagavulin
Ownership: Diageo

Independent Bottler: Creative Whisky Company
Range: Exclusive Malts
Age: 8 years (October 17, 2007 - February 2016)

Maturation: probably a refill hogshead
Cask #: 1601
Bottles: 320

Alcohol by Volume: 56.2%

NEAT
Its color is amber, much lighter than yesterday's younger whisky.

The nose is rawer, yeastier.  It's lemony and very vegetal.  Cruciferous veg, probably.  There's also some vinegar, cucumber, sweat, and plenty of moss.  Hints of bacon and Dove soap.

There's burnt rubber and burnt ham in the palate.  If yesterday's Lag was steaky, this one is porky.  But its biggest note, that almost overwhelms, is hot cinnamon candy.  There's also brown sugar, basil, and ethyl.

Brown sugar, cinnamon, ethyl heat, burnt rubber, and dry cheese in the finish.  It's sweeter than the palate.  There's a slight sourness to it and the heat lasts the longest.

WITH WATER (~43%abv)
The nose remains vegetal, but it also picks up an herbal quality.  It's a little floral with gentle peat and wood smoke.  Some cardamom too.

Still some heat in the palate.  Hot cinnamon candy leads the way.  Some salt.  A decent herbal bitterness like a German digestif.

Almonds, brown sugar, cinnamon, and the sour note in the finish.

COMMENTARY:
This one embraces its youth, trending towards the Classic of Islay style, though at thrice the price.  You're going to have to like young raw peated stuff if you're chasing this bottle.  Though I usually prefer less oak in my scotch, I found the 7yo's rich barrel gave it more complexity, character, and thrills than the 8 and its (possible) refill barrel.

The nose is the best part of this whisky, though I enjoy its type of challenge.  The palate and finish prove narrow, but are still of interest.  I think the whole thing benefits from some water.  If you've already purchased this one, I recommend hydrating it a bit, adding a little water at a time to find its sweet spot.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I don't really understand the pricing on these anonymous Islays.  Nor can I fathom the massive €€€ on the infant Caol Ila single casks (via other European independent bottlers) now hitting shelves in Europe.  Is everyone just chasing Kilchoman's single cask prices (of which 5yos often sell for $130+) at this point?  And is that wise?  Whisky Dave, Mr. Exclusive Malts, commented on yesterday's post about the expense, and I do look forward to some more thoughts from him on this issue, because these baby Islay price hikes may ultimately lead to a shrinking customer base.

Availability - Many US specialty retailers
Pricing - $150ish
Rating - 83

Single Malt Report: Islay Distillery 7 year old 2007 Exclusive Malts, cask 904

The last time I reviewed something bottled by the Creative Whisky Company, my post caused a bit of a hubbub.  But rather than shying away from more hubbub, I'm going to just keep reviewing what've I got here.  And what I've got here is an Exclusive Malts whisky.  In fact I have two Exclusive Malts whiskies.  And, in keeping with this week's theme, they're both (allegedly) Lagavulins.  Let's see if I can stir up any shit this week.

Today's "Islay Distillery" whisky is a 7 year old from 2007, while tomorrow's is the 8 year old 2007 (currently on the shelves).

Distillery: Lagavulin
Ownership: Diageo

Independent Bottler: Creative Whisky Company
Range: Exclusive Malts
Age: 7 years (August 15, 2007 - January 2015)

Maturation: first-fill bourbon cask (hogshead?)
Cask #: 904
Bottles: 293

Alcohol by Volume: 54.6%

NEATThe color is a light gold, noticeably darker than the EM 8yo.

The nose leads with big gorgeous peat, then mint, menthol, and burlap.  After 20+ minutes of air, the whisky picks up vibrant notes of strawberry bubblegum, whipped cream, tangerines, and praline.

Sweet aromatic peat in the palate.  Rosewater syrup, almonds, agave nectar, and honey butter.  It's spicy (chili oil) and steaky.

The finish is slightly rubbery, but also sweet and peppery.  Peat syrup.  Almonds/marzipan.

WITH WATER (~43%abv)
All sorts of new nose notes, like flower blossoms, butterscotch, rich vanilla bean, and baked apple.  The peat gets more moderate.  The mint and whipped cream notes remain.

The peat remains just as intense in the palate, though.  Some cinnamon sneaks in now.  Salt, vanilla, brown sugar, and a hint of the nose's florals.

The salty and meaty notes show up in the finish.  Along with peat, pepper, sugar, and a hint of herbal bitterness.

COMMENTARY:
Yum.  Now we're talking.  This isn't an example of a cask being pushed to the market early only to take advantage of the single malt craze.  This thing was plucked and bottled at the right time, rich at 7 years.  Had this been left to age until 10 it may have been totally overoaked.

The nose reads excellently with or without water.  The palate, though not terribly complex, is still very good, though better without water.  Unfortunately, the price on this whisky is/was beyond my comprehension.  Though it's a different whisky style than the official 12yo CS, it is of comparable quality to some of those batches, thus I'd have recommended it at $100 or less.  But at $160+, it's something for which you'll need to utilize your own value system.

Availability - A few US specialty retailers
Pricing - $160-$180
Rating - 89 (when neat)

Single Malt Report: Classic of Islay 2015 Jack Wiebers Whisky World, cask 1704

As mentioned yesterday, the online whisky anorak community has declared that Jack Wieber's Classic of Islays are in fact Lagavulin single malts.  I reviewed Classic of Islay cask 530 yesterday.  Today I'm reviewing cask 1704.  My sample comes from the bottle purchased for the OC Scotch Club event I hosted back in November.  I tasted these two whiskies side by side in order to compare and contrast and, hopefully, get more deeply detailed notes.  The results were mixed.

Distillery: Lagavulin
Ownership: Diageo

Independent Bottler: Jack Wiebers Whisky World
Range: Classic of Islay
Region: Islay, perhaps
Age: ???

Maturation: "oak"
Cask #: 1704

Alcohol by Volume: 56.4%

NEAT
The nose is brighter and fruitier than cask 530's, lots of rosy esters.  There are also ocean notes like seaweed and oysters.  Then there's ham, caramel, and hay.  After 20+ minutes, a subtle butyric note floats up.

The palate is mild.  Simple.  Bland.  There's peat, heat, salt, and a light sugariness.  After 20+ minutes, it does pick up a tangy lemon note, but also a woody bitterness.

Heat, soil, and smoke in the finish.  It picks up some sweetness and lemons with time in the glass.

WITH WATER (~43%abv)
The nose gets oaky, as in American oak pulp and butter.  Flower blossoms, anise, mint leaves, and light peat.

The palate is peppery with a simple sweetness and some caramel.  The tangy note expands.

The finish is tangy, sweet, and bitter, with a big caramel note.

COMMENTARY:
Like cask 530, this one doesn't swim well.  And like that cask, the nose is the bright highlight.  But this cask's palate is DOA.  I really dug into this one trying to unearth some palate character without much in the way of results.  My palate wasn't shot because I found plenty of stuff going on with cask 530 during the same tasting.  Plus my sample was not oxidized because I poured it the day after the bottle was opened.  Cask 1704 tasted sort of like a mellow peated blend, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this is cask strength Lagavulin.  Also, I could really do without the aggressive oak notes which, at times, feel like American "craft" whiskey.  The folks at whiskybase like this cask more than I, so take a look at their reviews for very different opinions.

Availability - Continental Europe
Pricing - €40 to €55
Rating - 78

Single Malt Report: Classic of Islay 2014 Jack Wiebers Whisky World, cask 530

For the past fifteen years, the German bottler, Jack Wiebers Whisky World, has been releasing multiple cask strength single casks of their "Classic of Islay" brand.  Since the Internet has decided that Classic of Islay = Lagavulin, and the Internet is always right and reasonable, that means Jack Wiebers has had in his/its possession more than 100 casks of Lagavulin and decided it was best to release all of them young, NAS, and cheap.  This baffles me from both a geek and business perspective.  I would figure that at this point in time spare Lagavulin casks are pure gold.  Why keep chucking these things out so quickly?  On the bright side, Jack Wiebers Whisky World has been keeping the price at €50 or lower.

I'll be reviewing two of these single casks.  One today, one tomorrow.

Distillery: Lagavulin
Ownership: Diageo

Independent Bottler: Jack Wiebers Whisky World
Range: Classic of Islay
Region: um......Islay?
Age: ???

Maturation: "oak"
Cask #: 530

Alcohol by Volume: 56%

(sample acquired via sample swap with Jordan of Chemistry of the Cocktail)

NEAT
The nose is very meaty and salty, then vegetables burnt over mesquite chips.  Moderate notes of smoked salmon, anise, and dark chocolate show up here and there.  With time it picks up some manure and menthol.

Plenty of heat on the palate, but not too much.  It's mossy, minty, with crushed red pepper.  There a good bitterness to it, a light cherry-ish sweetness, and a slight lime note.

The finish starts mossy then goes ashy.  Less hot than the palate.  Soft bitterness, lime juice, and a sharp peppery tingle.

WITH WATER (~43%abv)
The nose quiets down.  There's hay, white wine vinegar, grapefruit, peanut dust, and a hint of manure.

On the palate there's mildly floral peat, a little bitterness, a light sweetness, a little spicy zing, and not much else.

The finish mirrors the palate.

COMMENTARY:
Forget the water, go neat with this one.  The nose is rough but fun; either one is a fan of the style or not (check out the notes above).  The palate and finish are decent, though in need of some more angles or dimensions, something possibly gained by longer maturation.  I see some connections to other young Lagavulins I've had, but it really could be a young rumbling Caol Ila or a number of other peated whiskies bottled early.  Though I don't know how old this one is, I'm going to guess it's in the single digits, probably younger than 8 years.  It would have been nice to see what it would have been like after 12+ years in "oak".  In any case, the price of these "Classics" aren't bad considering they're single cask Islays.

Availability - Continental Europe
Pricing - €40 to €55
Rating - 83