Laphroaig is perhaps my favourite distillery (Highland Park and Bowmore are currently the other contenders) and it is not a distillery that needs much of an introduction to even the casual whisky drinker. Along with Lagavulin it is perhaps the most well-known of the Islay distilleries to the general drinking public, and, like Lagavulin, its reputation is also uniformly high among whisky geeks (unlike, say, the Macallan, which has high name-recognition among casual drinkers but is not rated as high by most whisky geeks). That reputation is for uncompromising peated whisky, mostly from bourbon casks. Unlike the third iconic south coast Islay purveyor of heavily peated whisky, Ardbeg (or Bruichladdich to the north), Laphroaig and Lagavulin do not engage in much marketing flim-flam or mad-scientist experimentation; and unlike Lagavulin (or the slightly less heavily peated Caol Ila), Laphroaig is not owned by the Evil Empire of Scotch Whisky, Diageo. (Though it must be noted that it is not as though Laphroaig is some quaint family-owned cottage distillery; it is part of the Jim Beam portfolio.) These things certainly help with the reputation; but most importantly, the whisky is usually very good. And there’s a lot of bottlings of the whisky out there–unlike Lagavulin and Ardbeg–which allows those who like it to try many iterations of it.

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