Whisky : Laphroaig Cairdeas 2018 Fino Sherry Finish

Country/Region : Scotland/Islay

ABV : 51.8%

Cask : Ex-Bourbon/Fino Sherry

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ Home

Nose : Baked, slightly burnt, blueberry pie.  Rich black grapes and the sweet smoke of a charcoal grill.  It is somewhere between grilled meat and a summer fruit dessert.  Faint nuttiness, honey roasted peanuts maybe, hangs out in the background with a bit of clove.

Palate : Roasted almonds, walnuts, and cashews along with sweet currant jam; it might be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that’s been burnt to a crisp.  Unmistakably typical Laphroaig smoke and faint iodine bordering on antiseptic at times.

Finish : Medium length subtle spice and salty sea water.

Score : 5

Mental Image : Slightly burnt fruit pie— a scoop of ice cream and it will be all better.

Something Better : Laphroaig PX (richer fruit and smoke, more harmonious combination)

Something Similar : Highland Park 18 Year (similar peanut butter & medicinal notes, more leather & tobacco)

Something Worse : Bowmore 15 Year (more motor oil & candy sweet, less body)

Notes : It was not love at first sip, but the 2018 Cairdeas has grown on me (and just in time to be replaced by the 2019.)

A good thing too as my wife and I ended up with two bottles of this for attending our local ‘Friends of Laphroaig’ release party last winter.  We had sampled this earlier in the year, shortly after its Fèis Ìle release, to figure out whether or not getting a bottle was worth it.  We were not terribly impressed after our initial tasting.  There were some odd notes, almost chemical in nature, or faintly artificial like black cherry Kool-Aid.  Hoping maybe it was just our sample was a bit off and still being fans of Laphroaig, we pressed on and signed up for the dinner.

The dinner began with a Penicillin cocktail that featured Laphroaig 10 Year; then the Laphroaig Select, Laphroaig Quarter Cask, the Lore, and finally a pour of the 2018 Cairdeas and our bottles to take home.  It was a great lineup to go through, I had never tried the Select before, and after that I probably never will.  The Quarter Cask was as good as I remembered, the Lore was better than I remembered, but the Cairdeas… well, it was still okay.  The dinner itself was worth the price of admission.

I’ve waited a long while to write this review.  Taken notes on this bottle a few times.  I wanted to see how much it opened up with time and oxidation, how some of the notes would shift as the peat lost some of its phenolic vibrancy.

The bottle has grown on me, slowly.  Now that we’re about two thirds of the way through with our first bottle we’ve started grabbing it out of the cupboard a little more often.  It is still not a bottle we pull out with any reverence, it’s more like a bottle we have two of and might as well polish off.  I think on the whole I still prefer the Quarter Cask and the travel retail PX Cask.  I know we will definitely be looking forward to the next Laphroaig Dinner and the 2019 Cairdeas, which promises to be a cask strength variation on the Triple Cask.