After the winner, here is the big loser: the pink Laphroaig, that so many ironies have unleashed on social networks among the people of the internet (sorry, we could not resist the temptation to use this formula…). Laphroaig Cairdeas: 6/7 years spent in ex-bourbon barrels and 15 months in port pipes: maybe we did something wrong, we wonder if we took our notes properly, in case please correct us! Anyway: the color is, uh, pink? Rosè? Aperol? Let’s postpone the babble until later, for now let’s sniff. Beware that the opinions of Whisky and Facile are not entirely coincident…
N: the alcohol is a bit pungent, but let’s give it time. For now, it smells better than it did during the tasting on Saturday. You can perceive a certain youth, betrayed by a massive, intense smoke, (only sometimes) acrid; this smoked side is accompanied by an intense aroma of salted licorice; it’s woody but also beautifully iodine and marine (fish notes, sometimes). Then there is the evident contribution of Port, with almost disturbing notes of very alcoholic sweet wine, which never fully integrate with the rest: very ‘sweet’ traces, sugary (you know the scent of those gummy candies stores? here, now focus on red strawberry gummy bears) and fruity (strawberry jam). Certainly, the peaty and smoked Laphroaig-ity has been stuck on a very sweet and candy-like architecture; not well integrated, it was said, but anyway the whole olfactory profile is better than we remembered it.
P: worse compared to the nose. There is a massive alcoholic bang at the beginning, next to a controlled explosion of smoke: controlled because it sadly vanishes immediately to make way for the Port, with notes of fruit, strawberry gummy candy, again. Slightly spicy. There are obvious grassy notes, oak and licorice; there is a certain bitter chocolate and a strong, unblemished sweetness that, let’s be impressed, reminds a little bit of Spritz… The body is very watery and disconnected, despite the 51% abv. It is not marine, it is not medicinal (not Laphroaig?). The water makes the experience, already not unforgettable, tragic, mitigating the sweetness but not enhancing anything else.
F: malt, lots of smoke, though not for long, wood. Again that abstract sweetness of fortified wine (strawberry candy, that’s the way we like it today); raspberry syrup, do you remember it?, what we drank as children… It tends to dry up a lot, and above all, Laphroaig’s DNA is definitely on the sidelines.
In the introductory hat we said that our opinions were a little bit conflicting: one of us found it terribly harsh, worthy only of a hatchet job; the other found it not exciting but in any case not entirely worthy of unpleasant appellatives focused on physiological functions. We agree on one thing: it is an experiment, legitimate for goodness sake, but not exactly successful: less than 80 points with our criteria… The nose is still pleasant, while palate and finish completely betray the character of the distillery; it will probably please the newcomers, who will probably appreciate that smokiness, accompanied by a brazen, trivial and excessive sweetness. We are not expert tasters but we have had some Laphroaigs before, so we will average our evaluations and give it 75/100: it is better than other things that have received extra points, but it deserves a malus for the mistake, for the betrayal perpetrated behind the distillate. So it’s settled.
Recommended soundtrack: Pink – Get the party started.
