Laphroaig PX Cask

Laphroaig PX Cask  48% Triple Matured Travel Retail Only Laphroaig PX Cask is a travel retail only bottle but you can easily find it online in auctions for a pretty fair price.  It’s really not much different than their Cairdeas line of wine finishes but this one happens to be triple matured which means it’s kinda like the Triple Wood but with a PX finish. Smell - very nice - sweet, peat, raisins, fruit cake, fresh dark red fruits, brine/salt, medicinal.  It’s the usual Laphroaig scents with the added holiday dark red fruits and fruit cake. Taste - first thing is a blast of sweet flint/ash but quickly goes to the think oil seaweed blast you expect in Laphroaig.  Adding some water completely removes the ash and provides the dark red fruits.  Campfire, peat, smoke, oil, brine, raisins/fig/dates.  It is what I would expect a holiday fruitcake to taste like if it were made with Laphroaig.   Finish - Brine/Seaweed, Medicinal...more of a standard Laphroaig finish but still have some of the bitter red fruit and the initial blast of ash comes back.  Good or bad depending on your mood I suppose. I don’t know the details of the other 2 casks of the 3 cask maturation  but the PX certainly comes through.  I find this to be really interesting but not something I would approach on a daily basis. It is not one of my favorite Laphroaig’s.  I would still take the Laphroaig 10 CS over this any day of the week but considering you can get this from auction at prices much less than the Cairdeas bottlings AND it is a 1L bottle.  It's worth a punt of your a Laphroaig fan.   Overall Grade: B-

Comparing with Càirdeas 2024 Cask Favorites to see how Pedro Ximenez influence interacts in each release. PX is noticeably much darker and reddish/maroon in hue while Cask Favorites is more a rose gold. Nose: rich, sweet, spicy. Sticky/syrupy dark and dried fruits. Craisin, dried plum/cherry, dried vanilla bean and baking spice. Earthy sherry. A touch of charred oak. Strong salinity, coastal/maritime peat fire. --The 2024 Càirdeas in comparison is noticeably more vanilla and charred oak forward, but still retaining a nice element of the sticky PX influence. Palate: dark, sweet, fruity with a nice underlying robust medicinal and phenolic Laphroaig peat. Black cherry, dried dark fruits, a bit of a dark mixed berry/currant jam. A touch of vanilla and nice overall Christmas spice character. Drying tannic charted oak and bitter cacao as it transitions to finish. --Càirdeas 2024 has a noticeably stronger cinnamon/spice element as well as vanilla and more robust oakiness. Finish: the peat really shines here, ashy, phenolic and with a nice strong salty sea spray. Charred oak warmth here too. -- Càirdeas '24 remains spicier and more warming, much more oak, less maritime character on the finish. A bit more dark chocolate.

I feel like the color got noticibly browner since the last time I opened this. 🤔 Might be time to get some nitrogen cannisters Nose: opens with classic Laphroaig peat smoke, as you acclimate, the dank dusty sherry notes come through. Cherry and red wine come through here too, maybe blackberry/blackcurrant? Woody oak comes through as well with a drying sensation. A nice pleasant floral sweetness too. Getting a hint of maple syrup? As I've drank through some, vanilla starts to present a bit. Palate: relatively chewy/thick. Still getting a strong amount of smoke and peat phenols here, this is still strongly a Laphroaig. Earthy, smoky, and with nice potent salinity. I feel like my memory here tells me this used to be lighter/brighter on the palate. Getting a nice amount of sherry influence here, but less than the nose. mildly sweet, definitely dark stewed fruit notes here. Maybe a bit of plum? A hint of blackberry? I am seeing more of the quarter cask's stronger and astringent wood notes here now that I've tried that. Finish: mildly tannic wood, classic rubber/phenolic Laphroaig finish notes are there, but feels slightly less than, say, the 10. There is also some longering fruit sweetness

I was looking for a bottle of Laphroaig for a while, since it was one of the first whiskies I had, but I couldn’t decide on one. I liked the Brodir but not enough to get a bottle myself. I heard the glorifications of the Cairdeas Port Wood but that one is impossible to get now. So I impulsively went for this one as a final pick from a (these days) rare visits at my local whisky store. The nose screams Laphroaig from all directions but very deep at the base is a dark juicy rich syrupy sherry layer that protrudes through it like a beskar spear. Around is the iodine and brine like on a cold Islay day after a storm. Just as wild and raw. On the palate Islay peat with salt, old wet wood and sour grapes. Then after the cold ash, the PX makes its way through and covers the whole mouth with delicious sherry notes that swing back and forth against the raw fire smoke and steamy charcoal. What an exiting whisky. It isn’t as deep and rich as I hoped it would be but if you give it time it is hard to find anything else that you don’t like. It is raw, wild, untamed, interesting, strong, characteristic, honest, a little playful and very Islay.

When you say peat+sherry, you got me hooked. This travel retail exclusive Laphroaig is triple matured and one of those maturations happen in a Pedro Ximenez Cask. I got to say i expected more, but still this is one fine dram. Bottled at 48%abv, Tawny. On the nose is just not that powerful. Sherry-sherry= Not that raisin dried fruit lie. Puffs of smoke. Herbal medicinal note typical from laphroaig. A little cake crest, Vanilla cream very thick remembers me of glendronach 12. Oregano and Prunes. On the palate is an atomic bomb. Amazing. So powerful and full of character. Red fruits, wine, grapes and full smoke barbecue sensation in the palate. Feels like smoking. Ashy. Peppery. Different from other laphroaigs. Sherry presence is felt. The aftertaste is a wild one. Long and refreshing, there are two aftertastes: the first herbal mouth full and when it ends it lits again like those trick candles from birthday cakes, storing some after-spice behind your teeth. Overall i think it is a fine interesting dram but a not very balanced one and not very easy to drink due to its power. Nevertheless 92 over 100 is a perfect score for it.

Sunset on the porch and a beautiful Laphroaig. Life is good. Nose: there is a prominent but more subdued peat, salt air, syrupy candied/dried fruit, getting dried cherry and plum. Some black pepper, also getting vanilla and baking spices, and some prominent oak Palate: sweet and syrupy, getting sticky dark fruit, with the background of traditional Laphroaig peat and salinity. Theres a strong dark chocolate note, some subtle vanilla crême. Almost like a chocolate covered cherry/raisin. Some zippy/sharp wood tones come in here as it transitions to the finish, tannin and aromatic baking spices. Finish: oak tannins, lingering earthy peat phenols, Ash, raisin/date. nb. A few drops of water tames the syrupy thickness a tad and brings out a little more wood elements from (I'm guessing) the quarter casks on palate. Vanilla gets elevated a notch. the oak tannins and barrel toast/char show up marginally on the finish