Laphroaig 25 Year SMWS 29.273 “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Whisky : Laphroaig 25 Year SMWS 29.273 “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Country/Region : Scotland/Islay
ABV : 57.4%
Cask : 2nd Fill Barrel
Age : 25 Year (Distilled 4 April 1995)
Nose : Fragrant notes of museums, fruit, and salt. Quiet evening hours in a museum or library closed to the public— notes of polished stone, old books, metallic curios, dried grass, and old wooden display cases. Subtle asphalt with dried lemon peel, grapefruit, and almond. The wife described it as “old violins and wood varnish.” Water brought out a creamy-saltiness with vanilla cream and a maritime breeze.
Palate : Medium-bodied with rich notes of smoke, spice, and fruit. Green-wood smoke on one side and cordite gun smoke on the other— a battle across the museum at night with notes of old wooden shelves, minerals, stone, and burning artifacts. Old spice came to mind as a rich spice followed the smoke: cloves, cinnamon, caramel, orange peel. Toward the end were notes of salty crumpets and maple syrup.
Finish : Lingering dry tannins with cigar box, black pepper, and salt water.
Score : 9
Mental Image : Yog-Sothoth Exhibit at the Cabot Museum of Archeology
Notes : Quintessentially Laphroaig, this was the kind of dram that takes you places and allows your imagination to run wild. I originally tried this during a tasting with our local whisky group, we paired this dram with a poetic reading of the Dylan Thomas’s poem from which the bottle gets its name (though maybe we could have also quoted the President’s speech from the film Independence Day which riffs on the line). This was the obvious winner for everyone at the tasting. I took home a few wee pours for the wife who just about killed it right away— she thought it was that good. It took me about six months to get around to retasting this and actually writing up my notes as I just kept waiting for the perfect evening.
This was far punchier on the palate than the nose led me to expect. There was so much going on in this dram that it was hard to know where to start sometimes as it transitioned so cleanly between different levels of flavor. This was excellent at cask strength, but a few drops of water heightened the experience and brought a lovely creaminess to the palate and the nose.
Overall, this dram tasted old— Elder Gods old— and I could not help but picture old wooden museum displays and all sorts of strange curios. It reminded me strongly of some of the older museums and archives I have visited and that feeling of starring at an exhibit that was as much an artifact as the things contained within it. As I wrote, this dram was a lot of fun and really opened the imagination to all sorts of different images and fancies—truly a great Laphroaig.
