Tastes

Sweet & malty like Black Bush, but there's more nail polish here. Not terrible, but not really worth revisiting.

Sweet. Malty. Maple syrupy. Inoffensive.

Wonderful, wonderful urethane. Had it blind and loved it.

This is nice. Sweet peat, green apples, pears, a pleasant amount of heat. Laphroaig ashiness, unsurprisingly, wields a pretty heavy hand here. And I think it's funny they dumped Flaming Heart '18, Arcana, and Nectar remnants in there; like they're just cleaning up house. It's very drinkable. That being said, this is a very hard sell for $230. I'm a Compass Box fanboy and if I had a sample beforehand, I would have enjoyed it, but passed on the full bottle. $130? Sure. But all I seem to do these days is complain about price, so maybe that's a me-thing.

Maple syrup. Thick, long, sweet finish. Pleasant, but nowhere near $200 pleasant.

Some apples & pears, but mostly maple syrup. Pretty nice & easy to drink.

Ashy tires. A fairly standard Laphroaig and pretty unremarkable given some of the more unique Cairdeas' of the past. I'm pretty sure the "more salty" because of Warehouse 1 is the power of suggestion more than anything; and a few people have suggested that the Maker's barrels had a distinctive influence on this, but most Laphroaig is aged in ex-Maker's so it's not unique in that sense either. Not at all bad, but doesn't really seem special enough to make the Cairdeas line--one of the yearly releases I look most forward to.

Sweet apples & pears. Handy is usually pretty middling for me, but this was a nice year.

Given blind, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between this and OF100. A bit thicker mouthfeel and lengthier finish maybe, but it's the same sweet bananas. Not bad.

Stop buying this. They discontinued the $11 6yr BIB, added one year, rebranded, and started charging 4x. Don't encourage that type of behavior. No, it doesn't taste any better than it did at $11, despite the fancy new bottle and price.