Laphroaig 2001 Provenance 10-Year Winter Distillation
46% ABV - Islay, Scotland
Nose: Lighter fruits and citrus, with a more subdued, lighter smoke and peat punch, fresh grain… and it touches on the tropical side, with straw and dry grass in the background.
Taste: Lots of smoke, bits of vegetal peat, fresh woodfire, citrus, tart, and light fruits. Well-rounded, being similar to the core range 10-Year but still on its own wavelength.
Finish: An ashy smoke, with singed firewood, and fading sweet and citrus notes.
It has been a long time since doing any of a lengthy flight, a flight of Laphroaig, or multiple reviews in one sitting. Buckle up, here we go, this is a review of Laphroaig 2001 Provenance 10-Year Winter Distillation alongside Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength Batch 07, with Laphroaig 10-Year providing the baseline for each.
This bottle—the Provenance 10-Year—was a lucky find; one of my whisky friends sourced this bottle for me! The Douglas McGibbon’s Provenance lineup features single malt that was distilled and bottled in particular seasons. I haven’t sampled enough Laphroaigs, knowing the season it was distilled in, to understand what influence that has. What I do know is that this was bottled just shy of a decade ago, and I feel that it exhibits some "old bottle effect" where there is a musty ‘n dusty quality.
Overall, I’m fairly pleased with this single cask. It gets a lot of points, for no better reason than it being Laphroaig—it’s one of my all-time favourite distilleries, but I really do think this is a great cask selection. I’m happy to have one bottle, but the chance I find another at a reasonable price is quite low (it was bottled 10 years ago!!), so I know that I will enjoy what I have left and will share some of this quality with others.
Details: Distilled Winter 2001. Bottled Summer 2011. DMG Ref 7566.
Tasting Notes (Official): Opens with a sweet and buttery quality, like freshly baked biscuits and develops to an attractive smoke character. Initially sweet and still biscuity (now burnt), the palate quickly runs to a rich sooty quality. The finish is long, with a lingering salty liquorice and soft tar trait.
Tasted 12 June 2021. (Posted 01 September 2021.)
