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Laphroaig 10 Year Old - Late 1980s
Laphroaig 10 Year Old. Bottled late 1980s. 75cl. 40%.
A classic late 1980s bottling of Laphroaig 10 Year Old, bottled at 40% in the traditional 75cl format.
This presentation is particularly interesting as one of the first versions to follow the transition away from the earlier “Unblended Islay Malt Scotch Whisky” labelling, with the bottle now described as “Single Islay Malt Scotch Whisky.” It represents an early stage in the evolution towards the more familiar presentation of Laphroaig 10 Year Old seen throughout the 1990s.
These late 1980s bottlings have developed an excellent reputation among enthusiasts and are particularly celebrated for their remarkable balance of classic Laphroaig peat and medicinal, maritime character with an abundance of sweet tropical fruit. Alongside smoke, iodine, citrus and coastal salinity, they can display wonderfully exotic notes of mango, guava, pineapple, melon and grapefruit – a style that has made old Laphroaig 10 Year Old increasingly sought after.
A fascinating transitional bottling and a superb example of the distinctive character that has made late 1980s Laphroaig so highly regarded.
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.
Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.
This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.