(FT abgeschlossen, Vielen Dank )Laphroaig 10 Years Old aktuelle Abfüllung versus Abfüllung von 1995

DocF

Meine Probe hat es auch zu mir geschafft! 

Meine Eindrücke werde ich hier auch posten, wenn ich mich an die Proben setze. 

whisky-trail

whisky-trail schrieb:

Fazit insgesamt:
Der neue Laphi wirkt entschieden geglätteter, freundlicher, fast „angenehmer“ zu trinken. Der Alte ist weniger zugänglich: schmeckt kräftiger, etwas heftiger und kantiger, insgesamt deutlich komplexer und intensiver.
Die von Horsemen04 anfänglich geschilderten bzw. vermuteten Vergleichs-Merkmale: „schwacher Abklatsch von früher“, „Wucht verloren“ und „Mainstream-angepasst“ kann ich auf Grund meines Geschmackserlebnisses bestätigen.

Ich muss meine Tasting Notes vom 22. 10. in Frage stellen. Trotz Lutherjahr: Revoco .

Das ist mir etwas peinlich, aber ich hab im Eifer des „Gefechts“ die eigentlich offensichtliche Tatsache übersehen, dass ich das „aktuelle“ Sample meiner nur noch knapp halb vollen Flasche entnommen habe, die mindestens schon 2 Jahre bei mir stand!

Mein damaliges Fazit: beide schmecken vom Aromaprofil her mehr oder weniger gleich, nur der Alte ist intensiver, wuchtiger, kantiger. Dieser Eindruck und die von mir wahrgenommene schwächere Intensität des Neuen, der Schwund von torfig-phenoligen Noten ließe sich eigentlich gut mit altersbedingtem „Lagerungsabbau“ bzw. Oxidation erklären.
Das erscheint mir auch plausibel, wenn ich Horsemens Eindruck in Betracht ziehe, der ja nahezu keine Unterschiede festgestellt hat.

D. h. für mich: ich will’s jetzt wissen. Den Vergleich also nochmal wiederholen, ohne fake-Sample . Das gibt dann sogar ‘ne Dreierrunde: alt/frisch, neu/frisch, neu/flaschengealtert.

Vor dem geschilderten Hintergrund würden mich jetzt natürlich besonders die Tasting-Notes der anderen Teilnehmer interessieren!

whisky-trail

Hallo Maltheads,

  wo bleiben eure tasting notes    

whisky-trail

Horseman 04 schrieb:

Eine Bitte habe ich aber an euch, wenn ihr den Malt geprüft habt, dann teilt bitte eure Eindrücke hier im Thread mit, denn ich bin echt gespannt auf euer und mein Urteil.

Hast du ne Ahnung, warum die Jungs nicht mit ihren tasting-notes rüberkommen?

j4ni

@whisky-trail @horsemen04 

Entschuldigt meine total verspätete Antwort, aber als ich die samples bekommen habe, hatte ich eine dicke Erkältung und dann bin ich irgendwie drüber hinweggekommen. Wie auch immer, jetzt habe ich es geschafft und bei gegeneinander verkostet. Ich muss sagen, dass ich denke, dass der Großteil des Unterschiedes von den fehlenden 3% kommt - weiß einer, wann die das umgestellt haben? Allerdings war die ältere Abfüllung meiner Meinung nach insgesamt unrunder und rauer. Und ich halte eine recht seltsame Pampelmusen-Note bei der alten Abfüllung, die ich bei der neuen "glatteren" Version nicht hatte. Hier meine Reviews für meinen blog bzw reddit:

 

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Info: It's a well known fact that Laphroaig 10 got milder and is not the same anymore and it used to be as peaty as liking, well, a bar of peat. In a bog. Which also serves as a hospital. For Seals. We all heard that. Surprisingly enough not from old men with weather-beaten bearded faces full of scars and wrinkles sitting pipe-smoking in their slickers by the fireside but rather from pale young thirty-somethings with a suspiciously hip looking woolen hat and a scrubby looking bunch of facial hairs which seemed to be embarrassed of their lonely existence. Still, we all know that, don't we? At least I do!

So when the opportunity to prove this matter once and for all, I couldn't let it pass, could I? Of course not (please, ignore my wife's snarky comment!). In autumn last year, a user in a German message board offered to share his bottle of Laphroaig 10 which he bought in September 1995 and to test it against a recently bought one. Thanks again for such an opportunity. But like these things go, I had the flue and didn't review them right away, so I forgot about them. Until the community review, so the first volume of re-reviews of classic community reviews brings not only my first ever whisky review back to my attention but also these two samples from 1995 and 2017. Sweet! Let's see how they line up against each other! The main difference beside the buying date is that the older version still had 43% which was sadly lowered to 40% here in the ole country. Which definitely has an impact on the taste and should therefore be mentioned!

Situation: Sitting on the sofa, listening to Brain Fallon's new album

Recent release of Laphroaig 10 - 40%

Nose: Bitter peat, slightly medical smoke, peat bogs, brown sugar, cold ash but more ashtray than campfire, iodine as well as some rubber notes. Buried deep down some tropical fruits. Classic, the longer I nose it, the more I drift away...

Taste: Sweet entry, bitter peat and salt take over just to be tamed by vanilla, caramel and brown sugar, which soon are dominated by slightly bitting medical earthy notes, salt and some oak,

Finish: Brown sugar, dark chocolate, vanilla, smoke, salt, some oak and bitter peat. Yeah, le frog!

Conclusion: A classic for me as this was not only my first review but also the malt which pulled me into this bottomless pit of nice people and friends both virtual and real in this strange hobby. I really want to write something poetic but can't think of any. Thank you Laphroaig for introducing me to this madhouse. The combination of bourbon cask sweetness and slightly bitter and medical Le frog peat just works for me. If I had to give a non-romanticized score, it would be

Score: B 85/100

Old Bottling – bought 1995!

Nose: Again, I'm surprised just how different the two vintages are! First thing in is a big whiff of pomelo and tropical fruits. Rubber, slighlty bitter peat, cold smoke, caramel, vanilla, salt and wet dark earth. Boggey as well. Bitter oak, quite a bit acutally. Wow, weird. There's an ever so slight medicinal note but maybe just because I imagine it and want it to be there.

Taste: An almost chocolaty entry is very soon taken over by strong salty iodine bites, wood or rather burning wood, rubber, pomelo, less vanilla and caramel as the newer bottling but still quite noticeable, brine and iodine in an everlasting struggle with caramel-y vanilla notes, cigarette smoke and bitter wood

Finish: Bitter medicinal peat, rubber, dark and bitter coffee, oak, brown sugar and vanilla. Some tropical fruits at the very end of it including – you guessed it - pomelo. It almost feels shorter than the recent release but then it comes back again, which is weird but nice. I expected more from this finish though.

Conclusion: Definitely more intense. Is it the 3%? Is it the older way of making it? Is it my head? Maybe all of the above and much more. This was distilled 1985 and earlier. Different times.The older version has an pomelo note which I have rarely had., which also shows up in the finish. This actually reminds me of the Cask Strength versions, obviously not in terms of intensity but you know? It feels rougher and more intense than the recent release, more powerful and a bit more dirty. I would say it's a bit more peat-y than the recent one. So maybe all that talk about it being less peaty than years ago is true but than again, the recent one still is quite peaty, maybe it's not the peat but plain and simply the missing 3% abv?

The older bottling has an unstable and edgy feeling to it though that I would usually associate with younger whisky but due to this being age stated it's clearly not the case here, which couldn't be so easily wiped away by abv only The rest, I would say is mostly folklore and the different abv – at least the “was much peatier”-narrative.

So while the older Ardbeg bottling was much better than the recent one, this is nothing to get sleepless nights over.

Score? Similar, I'd say, even though this is more intense, the recent one is more balanced so I'd call it a tie. I should probably do a side by side with a recent 43% release!

Score: B 85/100