I'd been tracking this one for weeks, the way a predator tracks its prey, the way the hunter picks up on the scent of its quarry and runs it to ground. Oh yes, as soon as I picked up the trail, I was on it. It had been in the coming soon section for weeks. And then one day, it was there, the mighty Laphroaig Cairdeas 2021 PX Cask in all its beauty and glory. So maybe it wasn't hunter/hunted so much as lover seeking his beloved. Sometimes, to our chagrin, we men confuse these things. But still, the whisky was going to be mine, oh yes, it would be mine. There were six bottles at the FW&GS store two and a half miles away, and since my wife had an appointment that morning and needed the car, I ran, with a backpack on my back, double-strapped to carry the bottle home, from my front door to the door of the Wine & Spirits. I arrived forty-five minutes after they opened and went straight for the scotch section, and behold!...it wasn't on the shelves yet. I pulled out my phone to bring up the picture, searched out an employee, and flashed the photo of what it was I sought. She went to the register, printed out the serial number and disappeared into the stockroom. Would she find it, return with it, my precious, oh my precious? Or would I come up empty? Would I have come all this way for nothing? But then, there she was, coming out of the swinging door, the gorgeous green and white cylinder in her hand with the red banner reading "Cask Strength" around its circumference. It was there, and it was now mine. All mine! I suppose I don't have to tell you here that I adore Laphroaig, perhaps out of all proportion. Yes, I love Ardbeg, too. But there's something about Laphroaig. It's like we belong together, like we're sole soul mates (although I guess we're not sole soul mates because a lot of others consider Laphroaig a whiskey soul mate as well). I'm giving this the highest rating of any whisky I've ever tasted and reviewed on this site, and I might be biased, but it feels deserving of this honor. I've never rated anything a 5, and there's a reason for that. 5 is the ideal, 5 is the unattainable, 5 is the whisky that likely doesn't exist in reality, the whisky whose experience is next-door to orgasmic. Do you know what I'm saying? Wait, I'm on a site devoted to the experience of drinking whisky: of course you do! I opened this a few weeks ago. My plan was to crack it on Halloween with my dad and my brother-in-law while we watched the Eagles pummel the Detroit Lions (not a mean feat, I mean no disrespect by this to Detroit because I feel for you, but every team pretty much looks like a championship team playing the Lions these day). Of course, given the description of my seeking this out, I think you might be able to guess that I couldn't wait, so I cracked it by myself, two days earlier. I'd had a bit of what these days we're calling an anxiety attack that day, so I figured I deserved something nice. And I have notes on that first experience, a post-it note with scribbled text all over it: "Earthy & Sweet. Loamy. Yes, peat, but it's beyond peat, it's much much earthier, mulch almost comes to mind, but like, tasty mulch." And it's true, this has the sweetness of the PX Casks, and the sweetness is well-balanced, but it's also perhaps the most earthy whisky I've ever tasted. I don't really know how Islay pulls it off. I mean, you read descriptions like tar and iodine in certain Islay descriptions and you wonder, how could someone ever want to drink that, but if you're an Islay fan, you know exactly why you'd want to drink it: you're not actually drinking tar or iodine or, in this case, Band-Aids, which is in among the mix on this finely balanced whisky. Your drinking a really good, finely crafty scotch that evokes those flavors and turns them into a smorgasbord, a delightfully intermingled aesthetic experience. Additional notes: "Another aroma it evokes is hash, oddly enough. My friends sometimes got it and smoked it in high school and the mulch mingling with the sweetness, which is a rich port-like sweetness, even though PX is sherry, is evoking hash for me. And of course, tasting notes don't often include illegal drugs, so it's an odd thing to bring up here and when I write this online, I have to make sure to note I'm not admitting to any illegal use myself (don't want the po-po knocking at my front door), but being in the vicinity of someone who used it, I know the scent or remember the scent and I think it's not an inapt comparison...." There's also something of new leather in the nose. Not old beaten and worn leather like that jacket you've had in your closet, but new leather like you'd smell if you went into a store that specializes primarily in leather. This is my third cask strength Islay with the first being the phenomenal Ardbeg Uigeadail and the next being the Kilchoman Machir Bay 2020 CS, which was lovely, but this Laphroaig really pushes it to the next level. The color alone, as soon as you pour it, is enough to get any scotch fans' engine revving because it's dark deep red, almost the color of a red ale, and it's just a thing of beauty. Now perhaps I should have begun there, but my admiration has my mind just floating, reeling off one compliment after another like the first time you encounter a really truly beautiful woman, and you realize she likes you back and it's okay to reel off compliments, and you just can't stop telling her how beautiful she is, you know? And so, this is next door to the orgasmic whisky I dream of rating a 5. This is possibly the finest whisky I've ever had. This is...a dream. And you can quote me on that. If you can find this, and you like Islay, pick it up right away. This is beyond a treat. This is playing the game on another level. It's enough to make me forget that I got caught in a thunderstorm the last mile home after I picked it up and had to sprint the rest of the way. This scotch is a reason to sprint. (P.S., it has a good mouthfeel too).