10 Year Old Cask Strength - Batch 17

Laphroaig 10 Year Old Cask Strength – Batch 17 is a cask-strength whisky aged for 10 years, bottled straight from the cask at 58.3% ABV with no water added before bottling and no chill filtration. Bottled at its natural strength, it delivers a particularly intense expression of Laphroaig, bringing together sweet fruit and vanilla with sea salt, peat and powerful smoke. Sourced from our own casks, each batch has its own distinctive balance of sweetness and character, staying true to how we make our whisky.

Batch 17 comes out of the cask at 58.3% ABV and goes into the bottle that way. The classic 10 year aged whisky is brought down to 40% first, which is what most distilleries do, and there is no chill filtration here either, so the oils that would otherwise be stripped out are still in there giving it body.

Then there is the matter of consistency. Our 10 Year Old whisky is meant to be the same whisky every time you open a bottle. This one is not meant to be anything except what its casks turned out to be, and those casks are gone now. One limited edition whisky. Numbered. No more of it will ever be made.

Because we saw no reason to take anything out. Batch 17 goes into the bottle at the strength the casks gave us, 58.3% ABV. 

Ten years decided that number, not us. Some casks give up more than others and we do not correct for it, which is why one batch never matches the one before it. The right way, not the easy way, and we have been at it since 1815 at our Islay distillery.

Different casks, mostly. While Batch 16  is an aged whisky that came out at 58.5% ABV, Batch 17 stands out at 58.3%, which is a difference you would struggle to notice in the glass

Both spent ten years in the warehouse and both went into the bottle at cask strength, without dilution or chill filtration. So the casks are what you are really tasting. Batch 16 came from charred ex-bourbon, and it shows: black pepper and charred oak underneath the apple, more savoury than sweet. Our 17 aged whisky went the other way, with the fruit sitting further forward.

We have never blended one batch to match the one before. Making Laphroaig is a labour of love, and part of that is accepting what ten years in a cask hands you.