Laphroaig 1996-2009 - A.D Rattray - The Bass - Single Cask 7288

An iconic southern Islay distillery, Laphroaig is the benchmark for heavily-peated smoky single malt whisky. The distillery has been Islay’s most successful single malt for many decades now, so much so that in 1908, following a commercial dispute, White Horse’s Peter Mackie famously tried to create a copy of Laphroaig at Lagavulin, leading to the birth of Malt Mill.

Today, the most revered and sought-after Laphroaigs at auction fall broadly into two camps: the old official bottlings of Laphroaig 10-year-old from the late 1960s-1980s; and the extraordinary independent bottlings of 1960s and early 1970s vintages by Gordon & MacPhail, Signatory, Cadenhead’s and the Italian bottlers Samaroli and Intertrade. The common denominator in these legendary bottlings is a remarkably fruity character alongside the phenolic bombast - sadly this fruitiness is no longer found in Laphroaig’s modern distillate.

A Dewar Rattray was originally founded as a spirits merchant and whisky blender by Andrew Dewar Rattray in 1868, and was acquired after his death by William Walker, whose daughter would go on to marry Stanley P. Morrison of Morrison Bowmore.  Their son Tim Morrison revived the A D Rattray company around the turn of the millennium, a few years after the Morrisons had sold Bowmore to Suntory.

A D Rattray are known for their Stronachie single malt, a sourced Benrinnes named after a famous defunct Highland distillery. Rattray has been independently bottling single malt Scotch whisky regularly since 2004, usually as individual casks bottled at full cask strength. The company also has a Cask Islay brand for anonymous Islay single malts bottled at 46%. In 2017 Tim Morrison founded the Clydeside distillery in Glasgow, which released its inaugural single malt in 2021.