Product description
Fred Laing's XOP series debuted in 2014, a dozen or so months after the division of Douglas Laing & Co.'s assets between the two Laing brothers.
XOP stands for Xtra Old Particular and refers to the finest single malt and single grain casks from the family’s stockpile. The Laphroaig 30 Year Old presented here is one of the jewels of the XOP collection. Distilled in April 1992, the whisky spent just over three decades in a refilled bourbon barrel (DL 15939). Bottled in June 2022 at cask strength (51.8% abv) and without chill filtration in an edition limited to 199 bottles, Laphroaig is currently the seventh best-selling single malt whisky, selling over 4 million bottles in 2020. (Official tasting note.)
Nose: the aromatic bouquet is charged with soot and the breath of the ocean, powerful for a 30-year-old whisky, plus burnt toast and the smell of tar on a hot summer day.
Palate : Hickory wood, brown sugar and molasses on the palate, some phenol, smoky oak and vanilla.
Finish: long, full of peat smoke and ash, peach melba and homemade pastries.