Laphroaig Cairdeas 2020 Port & Wine Casks
52% ABV - Islay, Scotland
Nose: Rich fruit, sooty, medicinal, an apple–blackberry jam, spices, and lemon cake.
Taste: Fruits come stronger than the peat smoke—lots of dark fruit, caramels, and of course the medicinal peat smoke is still very here. Strawberries, nectarine, citrus… perhaps a touch of peach or a general floral character moving into the finish. Bubblegum?
Finish: Smoldering campfire, fading fruits, and a hint of orange citrus.
I think that the only bad thing about this bottle of Laphroaig is that it had a huge price hike over many of the previous years. At least in my local market, it was double the price of previous Cairdeas releases all the way until (at least) 2016 when I first started to collect the annual expression. But, I’m a Laphroagian at heart and it was a price that I was willing to pay… and line up overnight for. Fast forward to today and it’s commanding roughly 25% more on the secondary market and it has only been available for less than a year!
All right, I think that the whisky has been waiting patiently long enough, so let’s get to it. I tasted this one after acclimatizing my palate with the sooty, campfire, and rubber that is the backbone of the Laphroaig 10-Year. It really does make for excellent comparisons to other bottlings.
The colour is striking: an undeniable pinkish–auburn hue. The nose is ripe with fruit and relatively tame for 52% ABV. There are a lot of flavours in here that I can’t recall tasting in any other Laphroaig. One of the only other whiskies that come to mind is a Jura finished in Sparkling Rosé Casks (part of the Boutique Barrels range). It’s definitely a great one to add to my library of Laphroaig. I wonder if this has some STR influence to it…
A delicious whisky that will be hard to replace.
Details: Cairdeas 2020 is a marriage of fully matured second fill Ruby Port barriques and ex-bourbon barrels, finished in red wine casks.
Tasting Notes (Official): Aromas of dark chocolate and menthol with pink peppercorns. Toasted peaches, charred marshmallows and a hint of plum jam, all intertwined with Laphroaig’s iodine rich peat smoke. Resulting in a combination of honey sweet taste and Laphroaig’s signature medicinal smoke flavour.
Tasted 22 June 2021. (Posted 24 October 2021.)
