Laphroaig Lore Cask Strength Is a Great Smoky Scotch

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

It takes a very specific personality to be able to revel in the idea of people thinking you’re kind of gross. But that’s exactly what scotch whisky distillery Laphroaig has done (or at least used as a marketing campaign: “Opinions Welcome”) over the past few years. This intensely peated scotch is not for everyone, often described with tasting notes like iodine, burning rubber, and seaweed. Yet it remains one of the best-selling smoky single malts in the world, and the latest Càirdeas release is a good example of why that is.

Laphroaig, which is owned by Suntory Global Spirits, is a peated scotch that you can find in virtually every liquor store and at every bar. The core expression is aged for 10 years, and it does the job just fine as an 80-proof single malt that is pretty heavily peated (40 to 50 PPM, or parts per million). But the distillery has much better expressions in its lineup to try, including a cask-strength version of the 10YO that is released in batches, a sherry cask-finished version of that whisky, age statements of 30 years old and beyond, and the aforementioned Càirdeas series. Technically, these whiskies are made for the Friends of Laphroaig and are released at the annual Fèis Ìle festival on Islay where the distillery is located, but you can get your hands on a bottle here in the U.S.

The latest Càirdeas is a cask-strength version of Cask Lore, one of the distillery’s core expressions. That whisky is a blend of single malts aged from seven to 21 years (the majority is 15-year-old) in five different types of barrels including quarter casks, sherry casks, French oak, young bourbon (under 10 years) and old bourbon (20+ years), and bottled at 48 percent ABV (96 proof). The Càirdeas version is that same whisky, but it’s bottled at 59.6 percent ABV, or nearly 120 proof. The result is excellent, and that high proof doesn’t distract from the flavors—which, yes, will include some of those potentially off-putting notes. The core of the whisky is, of course, peat smoke, and that means smoldering campfire, rubbery iodine, and charred chilis on the palate. But there are also many other flavors present, like vanilla, lemon citrus, black pepper, saline solution, caramel, and layers of fruit—mostly dark, ripened stone fruits like plum and apricot.

That rich flavor profile, combined with the high proof, won’t be enough to win over people who just don’t like peated scotch. And that’s okay, this is not the whisky that is going to change your mind and bring you into the fold. But if you are a fan of smoky single malts, and are one of those people the distillery claims covets the Lore expression in particular, the new Càirdeas 2025 Lore Cask Strength is well worth seeking out.

Score: 90