Laphroaig An Cuan Mòr 48% NV

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (85)

What's really cool with all these new NAS whiskies, is that we'll all soon be fluent in Gaelic. Proof, I already know how to write 'gleamach'. This one was matured in first fill bourbon and finished in European oak.

Colour: gold.

Nose: oh, there's much more Laphroaigness than in the very modest recent QA Cask or PX Cask, but there's also quite some sawdust. Big medicinal smoke, soot, a little candy sugar, brine, seaweed, then a lovely earthiness, damp earth, fern, moss... All that works extremely well in my opinion. No dumb vanilla syrup that I can smell, hurray!

Mouth: there are wee touches of plain oak, and certainly quite some ginger from the European oak in the first sip, but other than that, it's classic medicinal Laphroaig, with only a few touches of soda in the background (7 Up?) Big peat, liquorice wood, roots, earth... And blood oranges.

Finish: long, maybe a notch sugary now but it works. Candy sugar, peat, oak...

Comments: the oak's very noticeable, to say the least, and this baby feels a bit carpentered, so to speak, but even I prefer natural Laphroaig, I think this one's quite excellent, you just need to be into whiskies with 'exposed beams'. Ha.

BOW (86)